By Jose Maria Sison
November 30, 2019
Duterte keeps on flipflopping between calling for an investigation of corruption in the handling of more than 17 billion pesos for the 30th Southeast Games and absolving Cayetano who has been held most accountable for corruption because of the media and public outrage over the most obvious manifestations of corruption related to the private foundation of Cayetano.
Among such manifestations are the cauldron which is clearly overpriced at 50 million pesos, the delayed and sloppy construction or renovation of sports facilities, the shortage of funds for the training and well-being of the Filipino athletes and the bungling of the food, rest accommodations, training facilities and transport for all the athletic delegations from the Philippines and other countries.
Why does Duterte behave strangely and practically expose himself as a big liar with his flip-flops? It is because he himself, using Dennis Uy, the Udenna Corp. and other dummy corporations, has the lion’s share in stealing from the overly large fund for the Games and is trying to confuse the people and prevent a complete and thoroughgoing investigation.
Most of the loot comes from overpricing the costs of constructing and renovating the sports facilities, acquiring equipment and building the infrastructure and sports facilities in the New Clark City. Aside from taking large cuts from the overpriced contracts, the value of the real estate investments of Udenna and its subsidiary corporations in thousands of hectares, which have been grabbed from the Aeta communities, has been pushed up by building the sports facilities and the infrastructure leading to them.
According to inside sources in the Duterte regime, Cayetano’s scale of corruption is probably limited to only 1.5 billion pesos, which has been conceded to his private foundation, while by far the big plunderers are Duterte himself and his dummy Dennis Uy who have taken the most advantage of at least 11 billion pesos borrowed from abroad and at least 6 billion pesos appropriated by Congress or a huge total of more than 17 billion pesos as well as the thousands of hectares which have been grabbed from the Aeta communities.