[caption id='attachment_294492' align='alignleft' width='130'] DR. DANTE A. ANG[/caption]A laughable, cheap PR stuntLast Friday’s monthly press conference by Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority Chairman and Administrator Wilma Eisma, along with some of the SBMA board members, conjures up an image of desperation; of being spiritedly mean; of being petty. Instead of responding to the legitimate claims of news reports about her, she launched a media offensive characterized by yarns and convoluted logic. Her team also tried to disparage me and The Manila Times.Eisma, and in particular, SBMA Director Brian Gordon, accused me of making threats to the SBMA board members if they did not acquiesce to my request. “Media harassment,” they cry, using their own production unit inside the former military base as their main media outlet.Gordon said, “On record, during a board meeting, I remember (SBMA) Director Marvyn Macapagal stating on record: ‘Tumawag sa akin si Dante Ang, tinatakot kami na sasabihing ipapa-media daw kaming lahat, sisiraan kami kung hindi namin babaguhin yung desisyon namin.’ ” Seated beside him was Director Macapagal, who did not say a word, which could mean that he was confirming the lies Gordon said about me.Issues vs Eisma legitimateThe issues against Eisma are legitimate. Her TECO board seat is illegal and contrary to law. She has not reflected her TECO shares in her SALN. Nominal or otherwise, she has to report that in her SALN with qualification, such as, “Held in trust for SBDMC.” I say SBDMC, or Subic Bay Development & Management Corp., Inc., because SBMA is not an equity holder or owner of TECO as I will show (again) later.Her memo obliging the SBMA employees to attend a prayer rally during their lunch break, and her illegal memo ordering the employees to personally welcome the tourists as they disembark from the cruise ships, bear the mark of an abusive, inconsiderate boss. The employees are to serve as flag wavers, without receiving any provision for food, coffee, tea, or water, and even a cover for their head under the direct heat of the sun or the pelting rain. Many of them have to wake up as early as 4:00 a.m. just to be on hand as the cruise ships arrive.Those are relevant stories in the realm of public interest. She should just issue her comments and prove such reports wrong, instead of organizing an amateurish and wasteful PR campaign on SBMA time and wasteful resources to try to discredit me and The Manila Times. All she has to do is illuminate me and I will accommodate her story. What is she afraid of? That she can’t, is yet another proof that I may have stirred a hornet’s nest, so to speak.I don’t expect Brian Gordon to articulate Eisma’s defense. He just can’t. He is simply out of this league; and so, instead of clarifying the issues raised against his “boss,” he rails; he diverts the narrative and attacks me and the newspaper, like a mouse that roars like a Lion. But of course, I fully understand where he is coming from. Gordon’s qualifications are not exactly what private employers would be looking for when hiring regular employees. And so, to compensate for that lack, he would brownnose, pander to Eisma to impress her of his “loyalty, and inflated ego.”SBMA’S convoluted argumentI said it before and I will say it again. We do not owe SBMA anything. This, after we have remitted to it what was reflected on our book of accounts. SBMA billings are erroneous and laughable. Let me summarize it briefly:SBMA is billing The Manila Times College of Subic (TMTCS) for dues on the account of the previous tenant. I admit that in the original contract of lease, TMTCS was obligated to pay what the previous tenant owed SBMA. But this provision was waived in the amended contract that says, “…resolved to disregard the condition that LESSEE shall assume the payment of pending claims against Subic Bay Medical Center, Inc., including unpaid salaries of the latter’s former employees.” (Please refer to photo)For another, SBMA wants us to pay the rent for the three-year period at the time the property was vacant. In January 2007, the previous lessee left the facility after SBMA had pre-terminated its lease contract. The facility was then left vacant from 2007 to August 15, 2010 when our contract formally took effect. Yet, SBMA back tracked its billings for the three-year period and continued to bill the previous tenant after it had already left the facility. SBMA then insists on us paying the rentals during the time when there was no tenant to speak of or during the time when the facility was vacant!In its convoluted justification, SBMA said it had to continue the billings during the three-year period when there was no tenant “to keep the contract alive.” (Please see photo) What legal mumbo jumbo was that? To be “alive” or active, two or more parties must be signatories to a contract. In this case, during the time that there was no tenant, who then were the contracting parties? SBMA and who else? Who did it enter into a contract of lease with?Our other contract of lease specifies 10 buildings. Upon inspection however, there were only five (seven if you include a building presently occupied by SBMA Maintenance Dept. and another, a common building that houses all the electrical wirings used by other locators as well.) Additionally, we have agreed to an 8 percent annual escalation fee. But when you examine the billings, you would see a jump of more than 134 percent, which then became the basis of the subsequent inflated billings (please see photo).SBMA wants us to pay for the entire 10 buildings, saying that we have not developed the place for the past years. Regardless of the time that has lapsed, it doesn’t alter the fact that there are only five and not 10 buildings in the premises. So why pay for 10 when there are only five buildings?Eisma’s TECO board seat illegalEisma’s TECO board seat is demonstrably illegal, lawyers I have consulted with said. The noose around her neck tightened when she signed TECO’s CRTE (Certificate of Tax Exemption) both as SBMA administrator and TECO board member at the same time. TECO is a Taiwanese appliance manufacturing company that does business in the country and is based in the former US Naval base.That the SBMA board had ratified her appointment to the TECO board does not shade Eisma’s culpability, much less upend the law. She can’t be both a regulator and a locator at the same time – conflict of Interest, according to lawyer Raymund P. Palad of the Citizens Crime Watch.Vacuous argumentsIn her defense, Eisma said she sits on the TECO board by virtue of SBMA’s 30 percent equity in the Taiwanese company and to protect the interests of SBMA. She also said her appointment to the TECO board was ratified by the SBMA board and that she did not include her nominal shares in the Taiwanese company in her SALN because those shares were not hers in the first place. She also pleaded it was done “good faith.” She misreads the law. Or does she?The TECO conundrumSBMA had entered into a joint venture agreement with a Taiwanese company, United Development Corporation (UDC), and formed what is now known as SBDMC (Subic Bay Development & Management Corporation, Inc.).SBDMC bought a 30 percent equity into TECO and was given two board seats. Dr. Chin-Der Ou, SBDMC chairman, was assigned one seat and Eisma, the other. A board resolution was drafted and approved by the SBDMC naming the two officials to the TECO board. The SBMA board, in turn, ratified the SBDMC board resolution. It is obvious that her TECO board seat flowed from SBDMC’s nomination; not SBMA’s. Eisma is, therefore, representing SBDMC or the joint venture, not SBMA, on the TECO board.Eisma and some of her board members would rather label our exposes on her demonstrably illegal Teco board seat and her oppression of the SBMA employees as “media harassment.” Why am I not surprised?(Disclosure: The Manila Times College of Subic and The Manila Times School of Journalism have pending motions for reconsideration of the injunction they seek against the SBMA at the Olongapo Regional Trial Court after they have suffered an initial setback.- DAA)
DR. DANTE A. ANG[/caption]
DR. DANTE A. ANG[/caption]