Did Keng allow himself to be used?

Batas Mauricio .

PRESIDENT Duterte and the Office of the President should immediately clarify the current status of many contracts that the government has approved allowing several private businessmen to undertake huge reclamation projects involving thousands of hectares of land at the Manila Bay, from Bataan to Cavite.

Definitely, these contracts are at the center of controversies at this point, especially because one of the bigger companies which have was reported to have been granted a reclamation project involving some 1,333 hectares of land goes by the name of Century Peak Corp. (CPC), which is claimed to be owned, on the other hand, by Century Peak Metal Holdings Corp., or CPMHC (read this at https://www.philstar.com/business/2018/07/15/1833542/century-peak-picked-undertake-pppeclamation-project-cavite).

CPC and CPMHC, meanwhile, are reported to be owned and controlled by businessman Wilfredo Keng, the complainant in the libel case that caused the recent arrest and detention of journalist Maria Ressa. Accusations are rife that Keng allowed himself to be used by the Duterte administration against Ressa, a known fierce critic of Duterte since 2016, because of the Manila Bay reclamation contract that was awarded to him.

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In a tweet on Feb. 16, 2019 at the social networking site Twitter.com, a certain “Miss Magie @MiaMagdalena” blurted out: “Keng gets Manila Bay reclamation projects. Sabi na nga ba. Tarantado talaga ang Lord Digong and his alipores.” It is as clear as the rising sun in the east what “Miss Magie @MiaMagdalena” meant by her tweet

That, President Duterte managed to cause the arrest and detention of Ressa because Keng, the complainant in the libel case that was filed against her and from which the warrant for her arrest and detention was issued, was given a huge Manila Bay reclamation contract by the government of the President. “Miss Magie @MiaMagdalena” anchored her tweet on the story whose link we quoted here.

As it happened, this tweet was published again (or, as Twitter.com calls it, “re-tweeted”) by a respected Filipino columnist who is now based in the US, Mr. Federico Dik Pascual Jr., on Feb. 17, 2019. This allowed more readers to become aware of the original tweet of “Miss Magie @MiaMagdalena”. From where I sit, to clarify this nasty issue once and for all, President Duterte and Malacanang should immediately come up with a clarification about the Manila Bay reclamation contract that Keng entered into.

Be that as it may, I have written almost six years ago several points on reclamations from the Manila. So the public may know, I am reproducing one column on the matter today. Let us read it again:

On October 16, 2013, this was what I wrote: “… Can a local government unit… reclaim some… hectares of land from a part of the Manila Bay which falls under its territorial jurisdiction for the purpose of giving much of the reclaimed land to a private business? If we are to go by the provisions of Section 17 of Republic Act 7160, or the Local Government Code of 1991, it would seem it cannot do that.

“Why not? Simply because under Section 17 of the Code, it is clear that a city can only pursue a “reclamation project” if certain conditions are met. These conditions are, one, the reclamation project is intended to service the needs of the residents of the city, and two, the reclamation project is to be funded by city funds.

“In the projected reclamation of … hectares land from the Manila… however, it is immediately undeniable that the reclamation project is really not intended to service the needs of the residents of (the city), as, documents obtained from the City Hall would show, it is clear that much of the reclaimed land would go to a private company. It is also clear from those documents that the project is not to use any city funds, but would be solely financed by that private company.