Big Dick’s big ship

Sen. Tito Sotto was expected yesterday to file a resolution in the Senate seeking to reopen the investigation into the purchase by the Department of National Defense (DND) of 13 UH-1D helicopters in 2014.

Two of the helicopters have since caught fire in midflight and crashlanded.

The latest incident happened in Tanay town, Rizal province last week and left three Air Force personnel, including the pilot, dead.

In November, another helicopter from the same batch crashlanded in Sarangani province even though the weather was fair.

The helicopters, all scavenged from a junkyard of the German military, cost our government P1.2 billion (not P2.1 billion as reported in Tuesday’s column; I’m sorry).

They were forced upon the Air Force by then Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, one of President Noynoy Kuyakoy’s favorite Cabinet members.

The helicopters came from junk scavenged from a yard in a German military camp. They were shipped to California by Rice Aircraft Services which pieced them together, and then delivered to the Philippines.

The highly irregular purchase was exposed by Dory Alvarez, an employee of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, who acted as Rice Aircraft representative in the country.

Alvarez’s exposé was investigated by the Senate blue ribbon committee, then headed by former Sen. TJ Guingona, who was an ally of President Noynoy Kuyakoy.

Of course, the investigation was just pro forma; nothing came of it.

With the Sotto resolution, the can of worms will be reopened.

Informal settlers (read squatters) pose a danger to transmission towers of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), a privately owned firm.

The lots on which NGCP towers stand are owned by the government-run Transmission Corporation (Transco).

Two weeks ago, an NGCP transmission tower in Alabang (near the southbound exit of the South Luzon Expressway) toppled over after a fire hit an area occupied by informal settlers. The area was directly underneath the tower.

And yet, Transco did nothing about it.

The NGCP could not drive away squatters from the premises because a stupid law requires that they be relocated or paid off.

That is not the problem of the NGCP which acquired the franchise to operate the transmission towers from the government.

In the first place, Transco should have driven out all the squatters first.
President Digong, in a speech at the launching and christening of M/V Amazing Grace, a big cargo ship of the Philippine Red Cross, referred to Richard Gordon, PRC chair, as the “next President of the Republic.”

Big Dick, as one of the speakers at the launching referred to Gordon, blushed as the audience clapped loudly.

Amazing Grace can land on a beach and disgorge its cargo of rescue and life-saving equipment and relief goods in areas hit by disasters.

Only Big Dick could have acquired such a big ship.