Code-NGO made a killing on bonds, group says

IN SECURING the P1.4-billion reward for helping to depose former President Joseph Estrada, Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman’s Code-NGO was able to release P100 million a year for its poor members, the Freedom from Debt Coalition disclosed at a House hearing on Friday.

But for every P100 million that the Code-NGO released, taxpayers had to pay P2.5 billion a year for 10 years for the government’s 10-year PEACe bonds that the Treasury redeemed in October for P35 billion, group president Ricardo Reyes said.

The government had offered the Poverty Eradication and Alleviation Certificates in 2001, and on Oct. 16 of that year Code NGO, a group that Soliman founded, bought the bonds at the discounted rate of P10.17 billion and at 12.75 percent interest.

Code NGO made an overnight profit of P1.4 billion when it sold the bonds to commercial banks. The Treasury then paid P35 billion for the bonds when those matured in October, Reyes said.

He said Soliman and Code-NGO president Marissa Camacho-Reyes, both convenors of Kompil II that helped mobilize and spearhead the oust-Estrada campaign, made taxpayers bear the brunt of paying for the PEACe bonds.

He said Code-NGO’s Peace and Equity Foundation served as the secretariat of Kompil II at the height of the campaign to drive Estrada from power.

“Code-NGO made some P1.4 billion for its members, but the taxpayers were made to pay a total of P35 billion in principal and interest,” he said.

Reyes built a case against Code-NGO to dispute the findings of the House committee on good governance and public accountability that the P10-billion Poverty Eradication and Alleviation Certificate Bonds deal was legal and above board.

The panel was prompted to reopen its investigation after Reyes’ group claimed that Code-NGO engaged in influence-peddling and rent- seeking at the expense of taxpayers. –Christine F. Herrera, Manila Standard Today