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Giving
all-out support to rural banks should be an integral
part of the government’s countryside development
efforts, but it looks like the rural-banking sector has
been getting the short end of the deal.
Right
now, it’s the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP)
that provides competitive interest rates to retail
lenders, particularly micro, small and medium
enterprises, through cofinancing schemes with rural
banks. DBP also offers rural banks the option to
co-finance project loans to enable them to enter the
mainstream of project-based lending, which is more
developmental and sustainable. In addition, it gives
rural banks the option to tap the Industrial Guarantee
and Loan Fund for relending to micro enterprises.
But the
reality today is that most rural banks can only cater to
individual farmers/clients because their limited capital
dictates how much they can lend to individual borrowers.
They are, therefore, asking the Bangko Sentral ng
Pilipinas (BSP) as a regulatory body to give them leeway
to engage in aggressive lending, unhampered by
restrictions on capital-adequacy ratio, especially given
the nation’s economic difficulties.
Rural
bankers and their clients are, therefore, looking
forward to the passage of House Bill 3827, which seeks
to suspend for two years the required capital-adequacy
ratio prescribed by the BSP to all rural banks.
Although all banks, rural or commercial, are bound by
the BSP restriction, the rules for rural banks should be
more flexible and not as rigid as those imposed on
bigger commercial banks since the former’s clientele are
farmers whose capital needs are considerable but whose
ability to pay are subject to unpredictable weather
conditions.
Rural
banks are in fact indispensable in countryside
development. Take it from Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri, who
himself comes from a family engaged in agriculture:
“Rural banks are at the forefront of credit facilities
for our farmers, they also serve as developmental tool
in the provinces. When you help rural banks, you help
farmers.”
Overstepping his authority
Security
Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner Jesus Martinez
may have overstepped the bounds of his authority when he
issued an ex-parte cease-and-desist order on the conduct
of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) of its annual
stockholders’ meeting Tuesday, according to our sources.
Thus, the Meralco board did the right thing in
proceeding with the meeting, as it considered Martinez’s
order null and void for the following reasons: 1) The
order did not bear the SEC’s seal; 2) The order was
undated; 3) The order was signed by only one SEC
commissioner, Martinez had no authority to represent
other members of the commission because the SEC is a
collegial body; 4) The SEC had no jurisdiction over the
conduct of the Meralco stockholders’ meeting because the
matter is clearly an intra-corporate dispute, the
jurisdiction of which had already been lodged with the
regular courts; 5) Meralco’s right to due process was
not observed in the issuance of the injunction order as
it was released without the conduct of a committee
hearing; 6) the Meralco board was not furnished by the
Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) of its
complaint before the SEC, which was the basis for the
cease-and-desist order; and 7) GSIS is also guilty of
forum-shopping since it had already filed a similar
charge before the Regional Trial Court in Pasay City. No
wonder the Meralco stockholders ignored the order.
Energizing the green courts
So when
was the last time you heard of anyone going to jail for
violating environmental laws?
Every so
often we read news reports of complaints against
factories spewing toxic fumes into the atmosphere, or
business establishments polluting waterways with trash.
But how many of the erring firms are made to pay fines?
Has anyone been held accountable and actually spent jail
time for environmental crimes?
My guess
is that violators of environmental laws literally get
away with murder.
That
should soon change with the creation of “green courts,”
or special courts that will handle environmental cases.
It was Chief Justice Reynato Puno who pushed for the
creation of these courts, but it is up to the Department
of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to gather
evidence, pursue the cases and secure convictions.
Recently, 69 DENR lawyers attended an intensive five-day
seminar-workshop on litigation of environmental cases
sponsored by the Philippine Judiciary Academy of the
Supreme Court. The legal-training program is aimed at
making DENR lawyers “more equipped and confident in
handling environmental cases,” according to Environment
Secretary Lito Atienza. “The certainty of punishment is
the best deterrent to the commission of any crime
against the environment. Getting the upper hand in
securing convictions makes a very effective deterrent
against breaking laws, especially in the arena of
securing environmental justice, a relatively new ground
in the country’s judicial landscape,” said Atienza.
Part of
the problem is that there are only few environmental
lawyers in the country who pursue the cases in court.
But the DENR partnership with the Supreme Court and the
Department of Justice should strengthen the government’s
hand in pursuing environmental cases. It’s about time.
Plugging
the leak
Former
representative and now Bataan Gov. Enrique “Tet” Garcia
Jr. made headlines years back with his scathing critique
of the big oil firms operating in the country. But few
know that he is also responsible for putting an end to
the large-scale embezzlement of government revenues that
took place for 26 years, from 1978 to 2003.
In that
span of time, the government lost about P50 billion
annually to well-entrenched syndicates who stole checks
payable to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the
Bureau of Customs (BOC). The modus operandi worked this
way: (1) The syndicate intercepts a big check payment to
the BIR or BOC. (2) The gang strikes a deal with a bank
official who opens a fictitious account using a
third-party check bearing exactly the same amount as
that on the stolen check. (3) The bank official replaces
the third-party check with the stolen check, which is
then presented for clearing. The drawee bank where the
money will be drawn or taken clears the check and the
money goes to the fictitious account in the presenting
bank, where it is quickly withdrawn by the syndicate.
An
ingenious plot, but Garcia, an accountant, plugged the
leak via a simple solution. He suggested to the finance
department and the BSP that the three unused digits at
the end of the long line of printed numbers, called the
Magnetic Ink Character Recording (the numbers indicate
the bank branch, account number and check number), at
the bottom of every check be filled up with the number
codes for the BIR and Customs. The simple and
inexpensive solution was adopted by the finance
department in 2003, thus allowing the government to put
a stop to the hijacking of billions of pesos in tax
revenues that had been going on for a quarter of a
century.
E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com |
