Lambino Unsure Whether to File Libel vs Tulfo

                   BUT MULLS TO FILE CHARGES VS BROADCASTERS
 
By Mortz C. Ortigoza

DAGUPAN CITY – A cabinet secretary of President Rodrigo Duterte was ambivalent whether to file a cyber and regular libel cases against a columnist who expose him about hundreds of million pesos corruption as administrator of an economic zone.
Presidential Adviser for Northern Luzon and Cagayan Economic Zone Authority Administrator Raul L. Lambino just brushed off a query from this writer if he will file written defamation charges against Manila Times’ acerbic columnist Ramon Tulfo.
Lambino instead refuted Tulfo’s column titled  “CEZA Administrator Raul Lambino ‘outrageously corrupt’” and published on February 20, 2020 at the Manila Times.
“Lahat iyan ay may authorization ng Office of the President. It’s a rehashed issue,” he cited on his excessive foreign travels.
He mulled however to file libel charges to some broadcasters in Pangasinan identified with his political detractors who exploited to the hilts Tulfo’s column by violating jurisprudence on fair commentary.

EXPOSE'. Secretary and Cagayan Economic Zone Authority Administrator Raul Lambino and intrepid Manila Times' Columnist Ramon Tulfo.

“They should be quoting my reply on Tulfo’s column to make it fair”.
Lambino referred to those commentators making reckless disregard of whether the statement was true or false.
 Unlike some media practitioners in the province, he said print and broadcast media in Manila did not bite Tulfo’s vitriol against him. 

The firebrand columnist divulged that Lambino charges cryptocurrency investment applicants $100,000 (P5,090, 000) for principal license and another $100,000 for application fee each. But only $3,000 (P152, 700) is being recorded in the receipt.
“That was not true. They were sheer lies. The application and license fees were P100,000 to P150, 000. All of them were properly receipted,” the CEZA chief said.

Lambino also denied claims he traveled 22 times every year since his appointment as CEZA chief, saying that his trips were properly documented, and only upon the invitation of investment promotions agencies.

“Lahat iyan ay may authority to travel sa Office of the President. Nag-aapply ako niyan,” he told this writer.
He cited many of the accusation against him were rehashed because they were the same charges hurled by media men in Manila since two years ago.
“Willing akong mag-submit sa lifestyle check o kaya imbestigahan ng Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC). Makikipagtulungan naman ako,” Lambino said.
He met with the brass of the PACC last February 28 for a lifestyle check.

Source from the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency told Tulfo that Lambino received an estimated P5 million a week share from gaming operators “through various schemes.” 

Tulfo said there were some P2.1 billion in leftover CEZA funds from previous CEZA administrator Jose Mari Ponce.
“As of July 2017, CEZA had P2 billion in unused and unprogrammed funds that were disbursed [by Lambino] in highly questionable and vague manner. As of July 2018, the remaining balance of the said fund is only P140 million,” Tulfo wrote.
“Regarding the P2.1-billion leftover CEZA funds as of July 2017 and only P140-million balance as of July 2018, let me cite the 2018 Commission on Audit (CoA) Annual Audit Report,” Lambino on his first of the three series rebuttals of Tulfo's op-ed published at the Manila Times.
He cited the CoA’s figures that this writer provided below:
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Statement of Cash Flows

For the year ended Dec. 31, 2018 and 2017

                                                             2018                              2017
Net increase (decrease) in cash       P   159, 196,236           P    210, 768, 966
 Cash at the beginning of the year        1, 676, 346, 629         1, 887, 115, 592
 Cash at the end of the year                 1, 835, 542, 865         1, 676, 346, 629
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Source: COA

Lambino explained that upon assuming as CEZA chief on July 24, 2017 he immediately stopped the offshore games registered in CEZA’s companies.
These entities operated in Metro Manila and Central Luzon.
 “At the end of fiscal year 2017, CEZA earned only P214.58 million from its operations or a decrease of almost P712 million from its income from operations in 2016, which registered a mark of P926 million,” he cited.
The CoA report figures, Lambino explained, showed a different story in 2018, after he instituted the necessary reforms, which saw CEZA more than double its receipt of income from operations, primarily not from offshore gaming anymore, to P555 million (from P214 million in 2017).
“I call particular attention to the last item in the matrix. As of Dec. 31, 2018, CEZA’s cash on hand at the end of the year was more than P1.8 billion, not P140 million cash on hand by the end of July 2018 as alleged (by Tulfo). This surpassed by more than a hundred million pesos the cash on hand at the end of fiscal year 2017”.
CEZA has more than tripled its 2017 gross revenues and income to a new agency record of P706.512 million. Its contribution, he cited, to the national coffers for 2018 amounted to P147.83 million as dividends, P110 million as corporate tax remitted to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and P31.482 million in Bureau of Customs collections.

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