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IS
Finance Secretary Margarito Teves preparing to resign?
The question has been floating around business circles
since Wednesday morning, coincidentally just after Teves
was again criticized by Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, a
ranking member of the Commission on Appointments (CA).
Sources
said Teves had grown weary of dealing with the CA, where
his confirmation has been hanging for a long time; and
where he got into trouble in 2006 after his father
revealed that some CA members in the past routinely seek
bribes from nominees.
On
Wednesday Enrile vowed to block Teves’ confirmation at
the CA for allowing a subaltern to run the Department of
Finance (DOF) in his stead.
As far
as Enrile is concerned, Teves still has a lot of issues
to clarify before the CA screening committee reviewing
his nomination can even consider whether to endorse or
not Teves’ confirmation in the CA’s plenary session.
For
instance, Enrile wants to know why it is DOF
Undersecretary Gaudencio Mendoza who appears to be
making all the major decisions at the department, and
not Teves.
“Where
does the buck stop in the DOF?” he asked, pointing out
that the way the department is being run, it is Mendoza
who is “the de facto boss at the DOF.”
Enrile
explained that Teves could be held liable for
negligence, at the very least, for “reneging on his oath
to faithfully perform all the duties and
responsibilities” of the finance secretary. He added
that the controversial decisions made by subalterns of
the finance secretary do not absolve Teves even if he
does not sign any of the questioned documents involving
multimillion-peso transactions.
Among
others, Enrile cited the tax-free importation of
heavy-duty generators for a petrochemical plant in
Bataan; the distribution of P63-million informer’s
reward in oil-smuggling cases; and the downgrading of
taxes due on Pall Mall cigarettes that reversed the tax
valuation made by Bureau of Internal Revenue.
“Those
things would not have happened if Teves did his duties,”
Enrile complained, warning that “if he [Teves] cannot
explain his conduct, I will not endorse his confirmation
by the commission.”
“We want
to know his perception of his role in the finance
department [because] he has virtually surrendered his
responsibilities to Undersecretary Mendoza, who has been
signing all the papers in the DOF … it is Mendoza who is
actually running the department,” Enrile said.
He
complained that the DOF, under Teves, has also
“distorted” the government’s revenue collections in
asking private and government corporations to pay in
full in year 2006 the taxes that were due in 2007,
amounting to at least P13 billion. “This has distorted
the economic picture of the country,” he added.
Enrile
revealed that he gave Teves two weeks to “repair the
errors” committed by DOF officials or else he would
recommend that the CA not just bypass but reject Teves’s
appointment altogether. |
