BANTAY PILIPINAS

Southern California

July 15, 2010

The Controversial Code NGO Peace Bonds is Back with Vengeance

Los Angeles -- The controversial Peace Bonds that earned a windfall profit of P1.48-billion for the Code NGO then headed by now Social Welfare and Development Secretary Dinky Soliman, along with the sister of then Finance Secretary Isidro Camacho, is back under the rule of President Noynoy "No Wangwang" Aquino III.

People's Organizations and responsible legislators are asking that DSWD's Dinky Soliman and her cohorts should be investigated and that people behind it should be held accountable for the mess that allegedly duped the Philippine government in billions of pesos.

Social Welfare Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman, who used to hold the position during the time of former President and now Pampanga Rep. Arroyo, said she is willing to face the probe. The P1.4-billion earnings from the secondary sale of the bonds was alleged to have ended in the Peace Foundation she headed.

The transaction was alleged to have been engineered by Marissa Camacho-Reyes, the sister of Arroyo’s former Finance Minister Jose Isidro Camacho.

Soliman. a former NGO activists, exposed the different NGO and PO's as " communist fronts" and then went on to organize this super-NGO to monopollize the funding coming from abroad. The funding for NGO dried up after that and was channeled instead to Soliman and her group.

Soliman should be Accountable

The P10 billion Peace Bonds float where a group of civil socialites made a killing in commissions plus another P1 billion plus tax free that went to Code NGO, which funds are not accountable, will have Filipinos paying some P35 billion to pay off these peacebonds.

Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez and Abante Mindanao party-list Rep. Maximo Rodriguez, in House Resolution (HR) No. 58, said that an investigation into the controversy should be done by the House committee on good government.

The lawmakers said that those involved in the issue, including officials of the Department of Finance (DoF), the Bureau of Treasury, Code-NGO and other individuals, entities and corporations which could shed light and resolve the issue should be summoned by the House to explain what happened with the 10-year zero coupon Treasury Notes that had been auctioned off by the Bureau of Treasury as the Peace (Poverty Eradication and Alleviation Certificates) Bonds.

“Up until the present, no one knows, except Code-NGO, how the funds generated were spent,” the two lawmakers stressed in the resolution.

Billions in Commissions

“The deal, allegedly allowed the Code-NGO to earn a P1.4-billion commission on a government bond flotation in 2001,” both Rodriguezes’ resolution stated.

The lawmakers said that the Code-NGO, the largest coalition of development NGOs in the country, participated in the auction through Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation, a Government Securities Eligible Dealer.

“By virtue of the aforementioned characteristics of the zero coupon bonds, Code- NGO, through its underwriter RCBC Capital Corporation (RCBC Capital), was able to sell the Peace Bonds in the secondary market at a higher price than what it paid for. The realized trading gain was used to create a permanent endowment and capital fund for the Peace Foundation,” the resolution said.

According to Rodriguez the bonds are set to mature next year and that for the original P10-billion bonds issued, the Philippine government will have to pay P37-billion because of the interest.

“Up until the present, no one knows, except Code-NGO, how the funds generated were spent,” Rodriguez said.

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