Garcia’s Ghosts

The controversy arising from a report by the Commission on Audit (CoA) stating that the implementation of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) eCard project is illegal is resurrecting issues on other corruption cases in which GSIS president and general manager Winston Garcia is said to have been principally involved.

BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO

Bulatlat

The controversy arising from a report by the Commission on Audit (CoA) revealing that the implementation of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) eCard project is illegal is resurrecting issues on other corruption cases in which Winston Garcia, GSIS president and general manager, is said to have been involved. Some of these issues date back to as early as 2002.

Garcia was appointed as GSIS president and general manager in January 2001, shortly after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assumed the presidency through a people-power uprising that was largely against corruption in the Joseph Estrada administration.

In 2002, the Public Estates Authority (PEA) secured a P1-billion ($19.37 million based on the year’s $1:P51.60 exchange rate) for the construction of the President Diosdado Macapagal Avenue.

PEA director Sulficio Tagud, Jr. revealed that the project had been overpriced by P533 million – a disclosure that cost him his position. The loan was approved by then Presidential Legal Counsel Avelino Cruz, a founding partner of the Carpio, Villaraza and Cruz (CVC) Law Offices. Cruz is now the defense secretary.

The Macapagal Avenue project, said lawyer Albert Velasco, president of the Kapisanan ng Manggagawa ng GSIS (KMG or GSIS Employees Association), resulted in huge financial losses to the GSIS, which was then already under Garcia.

Luna painting

Later that same year, the GSIS purchased Parisian Life, a painting by Juan Luna, with its own funds for P46 million. According to lawyer Albert Velasco, president of the Kapisanan ng Manggagawa ng GSIS (KMG or GSIS Employees Association), the GSIS overpriced the Luna painting. The GSIS also sponsored a national tour of the painting – which to this day has yet to be financially accounted for, Garcia’s critics say.

In March 2003, the KMG sent a letter to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo accusing Garcia of securing P3.4 million $62,730.63 based on the year’s $1:P54.20 exchange rate) in unliquidated cash advances, and establishing GSIS district offices and hiring outside legal counsel at exceedingly high prices. The Department of Finance (DoF) under then Secretary Isidro Camacho, asked by then Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC) chairman Dario Rama to look into the issues raised by the KMG, found merit in these.

Later that same year, Garcia courted controversy arising from the stoppage of the processing of loan applications and benefit claims. Why should GSIS members have difficult transactions with their own money, government unions asked, when the GSIS had money for 84 vice presidents with monthly salaries amounting to more than P100,000 each? His own salary of P540,000 a month was put into question.

Ordinary government employees receive an average of only P9,000 a month, based on data from the Confederation for the Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees (Courage). The national average daily cost of living for a family of six – the average Filipino family – was P455.94 a day or P13,678.20 a month, based on data from the National Statistics Office (NSO).

Last year, Garcia found himself in hot water for securing a salary loan of P2 million ($35,599.86 based on the year’s average ($1:P56.18 exchange rate) and a housing loan of P11 million. His salary loan was reported in various newspapers to have been approved just four hours after he filed it, even as ordinary GSIS members still had to wait for months before their loan applications could be approved.

And now comes the eCard issue. Bulatlat

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