SEVERAL transparency and accountability issues in four Chinese-funded infrastructure projects need to be addressed to safeguard Philippine interests.
This was the gist of a study conducted by Prof. Edwin Santiago of the De La Salle Political Science department that appeared in “Spark,” a quarterly online publication of the Stratbase Albert del Rosario Institute.
The study, titled “Chinese Investments in the Philippines: Are They Corrosive Capital?,” said the projects “have become controversial for the Duterte administration due to allegations that they followed a unique way of doing things that disregarded the rule of law and characteristically lacked transparency and accountability.”
Prof. Dindo Manhit of Stratbase said: “This paper is part of the institute’s advocacy partnership with International think tank Center for International Private Enterprise and a broad network of think tanks in the region to study the impact of Chinese investments on fragile economies like the Philippines.”
Santiago said: “Critical information seems to be left out deliberately to force some form of interpretation inconsistency that could eventually weaken one’s data presentation and analysis.
“For instance, leaving out the exchange rate used in the computations will invariably lead to inconsistencies with government data — such incongruence can be used to undermine the credibility of the data.”
Santiago, citing the case of the Chico River Pump Irrigation Project (CRPIP), said “there is no information about how China CAMC Engineering Co., Ltd. was selected for the CRPIP.
Even conflicting pronouncements from Cabinet members regarding the issues surrounding the selection were largely ignored and allowed to die down.
He added: “For the NCWS-KDP (New Centennial Water Source-Kaliwa Dam Project), while the negative findings from the Commission on Audit about the bidding process were publicized, no action resulting from the findings was ever disclosed. It is practically the same level of information dissemination insofar as the bidding process for the selection of the third telecommunications player in the Philippines and the Safe Philippines project are concerned.”
