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Saturday, September 18, 2004
Cruz: Where is the money?
By Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz
THE Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) said it gave to the President's local fund an average of P1 billion a year. From 2001 to 2003, that would bring a total of P3 billion.
Malacañang however said it received only P1 billion from Pagcor for the President's social fund. And that the amount is the total amount received from Pagcor for the same three years.
Something must be wrong somewhere. It is not merely a question of thousands of pesos. It is neither simply an issue of million of pesos. Two billion pesos missing! This amount is not easy to count. In the same way, it would be neither easy to just lose them.
There could have been simply a gross mistake somewhere by someone or it could be something worst. But whatever it is, the missing P2 billion beg for an acceptable accounting, a credible explanation.
The contradictory information came from Pagcor and from Malacañang. The public came to know it through the papers. Thereafter, both Pagcor and Malacañang just kept quiet up to this writing.
To simply gloss over such a huge amount of money is not good for Pagcor nor good for Malacañang, not good before the people, most of whom now find it hard to have even two or more hundred of pesos a day.
Two billion pesos might be peanuts for Pagcor and for Malacañang, not good before the people, most of whom now find it hard to have even two or more hundred of pesos a day.
But to the common tao, one could merely wonder how much is one billion pesos. How long would it take count a billion of P1,000-bills? How many billionaires are there in the country?
Where have the P2 billion gone?
(September 18, 2004 issue)
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