A billion peso coffee caper?

The reason I entitle this piece “A Billion Peso…..” is that a news item said that PAGCOR, during the reign of GMA spent a billion pesos for coffee, presumably, to keep them awake and to have them continue to throw their money into the gambling tables.

Sus, Maria y Josep!

A billion?

I tried to back-track the newspapers – and there, in a July 15, issue, smiling like a cat that has swallowed a canary, was erstwhile chairman of the PAGCOR. Genuino with his lawyer, attending the preliminary investigation of a malversation charge at the Office f the Ombudsman.

What are the charges?

It is charged that five Casino Filipino branches paid more than P259 million to Promo Labels for coffee from 2005 to 2008. Naturally all of these payments and purchases had been ordered by Genuino and his other colleagues in the PAGCOR,

So maybe the one billion pesos coffee “caper” that I read before was not very accurate, that the billion pesos amount was for coffee - - - and maybe biscuits, jam or whatever one takes with coffee – sugar, or artificial sweeteners for diabetic gamblers.

The point is that the purchases were over-priced. By how much? That, I must leave to your imagination. All this, without the required bidding.

The net effect of the coffee overprice, according to the official complaint, was that five Casino Filipino branches suffered financial reverses due to paying Promo Labels the favored coffee dealer their overpriced coffee. Drinkers of course, were unaware that they were drinking the most expensive coffee in the world.

Which brings us to another matter --- the so called “privatization” or more accurately, if pompously, the “corporatization” of government hospitals. We objected to this move in a previous column. Government owned corporations have never enjoyed a reputation for efficiency. In fact, it's the other way, around with these entities, called GOCC, going bankrupt due to corruption and abuse by their caretakers.

Again, we voice objection because, as we have said government hospitals are a form of charity, like government schools that are subsidized so as not to charge stratospheric rates; they are the only hope for emergency treatment for the countless poor.

AGAIN, CENECO. My wife complained to me that she has called CENECO 19 times, and being foot-balled around by different sections until a Good Samaritan responded. The problem? A tree has fallen on the house on another lot across ours and was threatening to break the electric lines coming from the main road to our house.

Then appeared a truck with about eight people and they said that they were under contract to unsnarl fallen trees that threaten electric wirings. However, they said they'll only work on electrical wires connected to the mainline. They seemed not to be convinced that the fallen tree that was dangerously close to the wires of our house deserved their attention and service.

Do we have the name of their contractor? (The meter readers reading our electric meters are likewise not employees of CENECO. The meter reading job is also under contract.) This complicates the sending of complaints and its resolution.

Oh, well.

JUDGE GRACIANO ARINDAY. This column extends its deepest condolence to the family of the late Judge Arinday who died more than a week ago.

I knew “Gara” (as he was called) in Silliman University way back in the early 50's.

Gara became a literary institution in the Silliman University literary group (presided over by the late Edith Trempo). He was a prolific poet whose works were a staple for a national paper. (If I remember right, it was the Chronicle).

We are sure that friends and associates of “Gara,” and later Judge Arinday, will miss him.*

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