Was the Indonesian Salim Aquino’s biggest crony?

the world?

Or were the editors incredulous that a huge chunk of an Indonesian billionaires’ wealth is not in his home country but in another? Indeed, in the history of Forbes’ roster of the world’s billionaires, Salim is the only such tycoon, much of whose wealth is in a neighboring country, the Philippines. Such has been the sorry state of our country. Don’t you think that means something terribly wrong is happening in our nation?

Salim’s main sources of wealth in the and listings have always been reported as Indofood (the world’s biggest

$2.4 billion from 2000 to 2015, in the mobile phone industry now, past decade, and a near-monopoly, accounting for 70 percent of mobile and fixed- lines phones in the country.

Pangilinan’s “corporate citizen of these series, is indeed admirable, a quality so much needed in a country ruled by oligarchs, who view the Philippines merely as a and not their real nation.

huge public relations campaign to portray Pangilinan as a tycoon with a high sense of civic duty, one who spends hundreds of millions of pesos on philanthropy, social causes, sports and the academe.

mind of Filipinos that Pangilinan - ate, concealing the reality that it is tightly owned by an Indonesian magnate, in violation of constitutional provisions limiting foreign capital in public utilities.

We need, of course, foreign capital especially in areas where Filipino capitalists could learn from their technology. But Salim’s investment in the Philippines is which the Constitution limits foreign capital because these exploit natural resources (the radio spectrum in the case of cellphones) and monopoly features (as in the case of Meralco and tollroads), which should be reserved for Filipinos, or for the state itself. No Asian nation, in fact, allows such dominance by a foreign magnate of its telecoms, power, and other public

Such control, has, in fact siphoned off from the country much needed capital: From 2000 to 2015 Salim and the other mostly US shareholders in First Pacific is equivalent to the amount of country had received

If you think that this is merely capitalism at work, check out the court records in which respected

Alfonso Yuchengco testi - dent Estrada threatened him in 1998 to throw his son in jail on trumped-up illegal-drug charges debunks the argument that we need foreign investment because we lack capital. Yuchengco wanted to organize consortium to buy out the Cojuangcos.)

Check out the several accounts, including that in the book of incumbent Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay, Jr., in which he claimed Estrada got P3 billion in

Harry Stonehill

war history that a foreigner wielded such economic and political power in the country was in the 1950s, when a former G.I., Harry Stonehill, built a conglomerate of cigarette, glass and cement manufacturers. His net worth was estimated at $50 million at the time, equivalent to $400 million with Salim’s estimated assets in the country of $4.5 billion, based on and Philex Mining. (Stonehill became the subject of a sensational congressional investigation in 1960, which exposed his bribery of to build and maintain his empire, and was subsequently deported.)

A recent article by the respected magazine defined “cronies” as billionaires heavily involved in “crony sectors,” or those “vulnerable to monopoly or heavy state involvement.”

graft, according to bribery - parency International,” the magazine explained.

is saying that one would be so naive to believe that giant companies engaged in public utilities in developing countries are regulated strictly according to the rule of law, and operate at arms’ length from the incumbent political rulers.

Out of the 10 such “rentseeking sectors” the magazine listed, Salim’s conglomerate in the Philippines is based on three of these: telecoms, utilfrom the Cojuangcos, even reities and infrastructure. Salim, moving the SEC chairman at that in fact, is the only billionaire time, Perfecto Yasay, Jr. who raised in the Philippines whose conglomerate is deeply enbecame Salim’s launching pad for gaged in public utilities and his rapid expansion in the couninfrastructure. try in the next two decades, with

Going by definition of “cronyism,” Meralco and build a media empire; therefore, Salim is the biggest During Gloria Arroyo’s adand newest crony capitalist in the ministration, Salim acquired country now. the power-distribution monop

- pansion into infrastructure projelite, which became its base for ects last year together would expanding into the power sector. explain Salim also captured in 2009 the that the Philippines’ ranking in country’s biggest gold producer, the crony-capitalism index worsPhilex Mining, with the crucial help of the Development Bank 2014, to third this year, after of the Philippines. Malaysia and Russia. Marcos had Under Benigno Aquino 3rd, cronies, but Filipinos. Now we the Securities and Exchange Comhave, going by decisions in 2011 and 2012,

What bolsters such appellation which could have stopped or is that Salim’s conglomerate made even closed down Salim’s major breakthroughs of operations in the country as the past four administrations, he was in violation of conwhich could not have been understitutional limits on foreign taken without each government’s active participation:

Under Fidel Ramos’ adminisnon- appealable in 2015, ruled tration, Salim’s consortium won that corporate-layering schemes the prized Fort Bonifacio property such as that which Salim uses project, backed by state instituto conceal his foreign ownertions, beating the group led by - the country’s old-elite Ayala clan. tutional. Yet, the decision has Salim would have captured San been ignored by the SEC, the very Miguel Corp. had Ramos moved agency tasked to enforce it. Unjust a bit earlier in lifting the der Aquino’s watch, the Salim sequestration of coco-levy shares conglomerate has grown rapidly in the food and beverage conto include the largest infrastrucglomerate, which is the biggest in ture investment management the country; and holding company, run

Joseph Estrada very actively ning even the country’s longest toll-road network.

Will President Duterte prove different?

First Pacific’s mechanisms for - ippines are exactly the same as those used by capitalists from the superpowers in the last century, a form of exploitation called neocolonialism.

But now we suffer from a neocolonialist who is not even from a superpower, but from a neighboring country that is not even superior to us but stands at roughly the same economic level where we are.

What kind of a country have we become? my book Order at rigobertotiglao.com/book.