Friday, 30 August 2013 23:33
Written by Eduardo Lyle
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| Executive Secretary Paquito 'Jojo' Ochoa |
Executive Secretary Paquito ‘Jojo’ Ochoa and President Noynoy Aquino go a long way. In fact, it goes back to the time of their fathers. Both were stalwarts of the Liberal Party in the 60s: Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino Jr. was a senator, while Paquito Ochoa Sr. was mayor of Pulilan, Bulacan. In one interview back in 2010, the current ‘Little President’ claimed that during the Plaza Miranda bombing, Ninoy was in Pulilan with the older Ochoa, celebrating the latter’s birthday.
Their two sons became classmates at the Ateneo de Manila University. During Aquino’s first term in the House in 1998, he took the younger Ochoa as his legal counsel, a position the current ‘Little President’ would take ever since. In 2006, he would firm the MOST Law Firm with the wife of Bongbong Marcos, Liza Marcos, Edward Serapio, and Joseph Tan. Hence, the name of their firm is an acronym of their surnames.
The Glass Mansion
Ochoa first found himself in the news in February 2011 when it was revealed that he owned a P40 million ‘glass mansion’ in the swanky White Plains community in Quezon City. What made it interesting is the fact that the Secretary did not declare it in his Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN). Further digging revealed that the mansion is owned by a holding company of which three out of five shareholders are lawyers of MOST. The fourth is Ma. Theresa Ochoa-Acuzar, the Little President’s sister and wife of construction tycoon Jerry Acuzar.
Interestingly, half of the shares are owned by Joseph Tan, Ochoa’s partner in MOST, while a fourth is owned by Jerry Acuzar’s wife.
The Acuzar Connection
It was not the first time that Ochoa and Acuzar would be lumped together in any political discussion.
The construction magnate owns the mansion in Samar Avenue, Quezon City used by members of the faction led by Vice President Jojo Binay during the 2010 election campaign period. Hence the name ‘Samar Group’, while the ‘Balay Group’ of losing vice presidential bet Mar Roxas held their meetings at the ‘Balay na Puti’ compound, or the Araneta compound in Quezon City.
The relationship with Acuzar would be thrown back in the spotlight again last June, when the peasant group KMP or Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (Peasant Movement of the Philippines), revealed that Acuzar’s New San Jose Builders (NSJB) and the Goldenville Realty and Development Corporation is being awarded the contracts for constructing various relocation sites for Metro Manila ‘estero’ dwellers, and other urban poor.
An even bigger bombshell concerning Acuzar and Ochoa was released last September 3.
Jun Lozada, previously famous for being the whistle-blower in the $329 million anomalous ZTE-NBN deal during the previous administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, revealed that Acuzar was the recipient of a ‘midnight’ deal under the same Administration.
Three days before the 2010 national elections, Arroyo signed Presidential Proclamation 2057 which gave Phil. Forest Corporation (Philforest) the power to ‘administer’ the area covered by the Busuanga Pasture Reserve in Palawan, covering 2,000 hectares of forest lands and beach-front property. Several months before, on November 2009, Philforest entered into a deal with NSJB allowing the latter to ‘lease’ the lands held by the former. With the signing of PP 2057, Acuzar’s NSJB was given the power to administer the 2,000 hectare estate.
According to Lozada, the anomalous nature of deal stemmed not just from its timing, but also from the terms of the agreement. In the deal, NSJB promised to pay Philforest an annual rent of P500 per hectare. But based on his interviews with local residents in Busuanga and Coron, rentals of forest lands in the said area usually amounted to P2,000 per month, while beachfront lands were pegged at P3,000 monthly. Even worse, the actual payments made by NSJB amounted to a paltry P100 per year.
The Cover-up
According to Lozada, he revealed the ‘Busuanga Scam’ because the president, contrary to his prior proclamations of cancelling Arroyo’s midnight deals, did not cancel the Philforest-NSJB deal.
Meanwhile, Fr. Marlon Lacal of the Association of Major Religious Superiors of Men in the Philippines (AMSRP) accused the the Aquino administration of ‘covering-up’ the Busuanga Scam by ordering the dissolution of Philforest. The Palace had earlier said that Philforest is one of five state-owned firms used as conduits for the release of lawmakers’ Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) to bogus non-government organizations (NGOs).
According to Lacal, the disbandment of Philforest might actually be used to destroy or hide some of the firm’s official documents which would show the extent of the Philforest-NSJB deal.
Ochoa and Napoles
As the Napoles pork barrel scam burst into the public’s limelight last June, it was revealed that Janet’s legal counsel was the MOST Firm: the same one founded by Executive Secretary back in 2006. In an apparent move to defuse the potential explosiveness of such a connection, both parties denied the report and another lawyer, Lorna Kapunan, represented Napoles in succeeding appearances in court and in public.
Days after Lozada’s claims, showbiz figure Lolit Solis then went forward and accused Ochoa of soliciting campaign funds for the President’s 2010 run from Napoles in 2009. She claimed that she was sitting right beside the ‘Pork Barrel Queen’ during a party when the Executive Secretary called the former.
Mafia in the Palace?
Revelations about the Little President’s links with the likes of Acuzar and Ochoa does not inspire public confidence with the Aquino administration’s avowed anti-corruption direction. The President is walking a tightrope between trying to calm a public which is becoming increasingly angry with the extent of the misuse of the PDAF and other pork barrel funds, and trying to retain the said funds. The non-investigation of the ‘Little President’ and the people around him will only bolster public perception that the Aquino administration is no different, and may just be even more corrupt, than its predecessor.#
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