By JOSEPH G. LARIOSA

(© Journal Group Link International)

Millions in Millennium Grant Deferred By Secretary of State Clinton For Next RP President

C HICAGO (JGLi) – Last February 10, the U.S. Government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) chaired by United States State Secretary Hillary Clinton approved a $3.55-million grant to support Philippine government’s “development of a potential compact to reduce poverty through economic growth.”

The grant was part of the Philippines' nearly $21 million, two-year program that seeks to improve its revenue administration and anti-corruption efforts and is consistent with the “Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan, 2004-2010,” which was developed under the guidance of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The program was expected to further accelerate and institutionalize efforts to stamp out corruption, improve tax collection, and channel more resources to poverty reduction programs such as in healthcare, education and social services. The program is administered by the United States Agency for International Development.

But the additional compact funding for this project would have to be shelved.

A press release sent Monday (March 29) to this reporter by the MCC's Amanda Burke quoted MCC Chief Executive Officer Daniel W. Yohannes as saying that the “MCC Board deferred final consideration of the compact proposal in order to engage with the incoming administration to secure their commitment to the ideals and principles of MCC and to the compact’s objectives and implementation.”

It said the MCC and the Philippine government have been working together to develop an MCC compact proposal focused on reducing poverty and stimulating economic growth.

During the MCC Board meeting last week (March 24), Mr. Yohannes said, “ the MCC Board praised the Government of the Philippines for their hard work in developing this innovative compact proposal and acknowledged the government’s commitment in working with MCC on its threshold program, which focused on corruption and ended last year.

“We will look to the incoming Philippines’ government to demonstrate its commitment to MCC principles and the compact before final consideration,” Mr. Yohannes added.

T he withholding of the grant comes two weeks after a Filipino-American delegation led by New York lawyer and businesswoman Loida Nicolas-Lewis paid a courtesy call on Secretary Clinton in the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C., and handed her a letter, expressing “concerns that clean, fair and credible elections are in jeopardy in the Philippines.”

Attorney Lewis asked Secretary Clinton “to recommend to President Barack Obama to send an observer team similar to that headed by Sen. Richard Lugar in the 1986 Philippine Snap Presidential Elections.”

Mrs. Lewis group met with Mrs. Clinton’s deputy chief of staff for foreign relations, Jake Sullivan, for almost two hours. The group expressed concerns that if there would be a failure of elections, it could be a scheme to keep Arroyo in power.

Mrs. Clinton has yet to announce action on Mrs. Lewis’ letter.

The shelving of the compact funding is also a blow to President Arroyo, who is coming to Washington, D.C., on April 12 and 13 in her “farewell tour,” less than three months into her lame duck presidency.

Part of the grant was to finance in recruiting a procurement agent, develop the compact procurement strategy, create a bid challenge system, and provide a training program to prevent procurement fraud. The grant also will fund the recruitment of a fiscal agent to prepare a financial accounting system for the proposed compact program.

It would have also funded “transport infrastructure to improve access to markets and services for farmers, fishers and small enterprises, and the expansion of a community-based rural development program focusing on poor areas” that was being finalized by the MCC Board of Directors for 2010.

The proposed five-year compact with the Philippines would include the expansion of a community-based rural development program called Kalahi-CIDSS focusing on poor areas, which is expected to benefit over five-million people over the next 20 years.

The proposed compact also would include construction and rehabilitation of the 220-kilometer Samar Road, which would improve access to markets and services for farmers, fishermen and small enterprises in some of the poorest provinces in the Philippines.

The proposed compact would also assist in the redesign and computerization of key business processes in the Department of Finance’s Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) that would increase the efficiency and sustainability of revenue collection while reducing opportunities for corruption. Some of the activities within the BIR are extensions of MCC’s threshold program with the Philippines, which concluded in May 2009. (lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net) # # #

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