Passport deal crumbles as Zobel emerges, sues PNoy-approved printer
Ayala heir Inigo Zobel has acknowledged that he is the silent partner of a PNoy-administration venture that allowed a Malabon printer to print the Philippine passport for 10 years for an estimated P38 billion revenues, a deal that the Duterte administration has decided to honor despite declaring the venture “anomalous” and “illegal.”
The confirmation came after Zobel filed a criminal complaint of estafa against United Graphic Expression Corp., the printing company controlled by Henry Cureg and his wife Edna Yee.
Zobel, through an intermediary, has acknowledged that he had initiated a money claim against United Graphic, but declined to provide details.
Apparently as a result of the corporate feud, United Graphic has transferred its corporate offices out of the penthouse of the Zobel-owned Enzo Building to Trafalgar Plaza in Salcedo Village, also in Makati.
According to corporate filings in 2019, Zobel’s family holding company, E. Zobel Inc., owned 30 percent of United Graphic, with Zobel’s stepmother, Dee Hora, and Zobel son, Jacobo Tristan, sitting as directors.
Cureg, as company founder, was listed as chairman and president, with his wife as executive vice president and treasurer. The rest of the board positions, save for the corporate secretary, were held by the Cureg and Yee family members. According to a BusinessWorld interview with Milagros Alora, the PNoy-era chairman of the government printing unit APO-Production Unit, United Graphic was guaranteed a floor price of P832 for every e-Passport that it will print for the government.
The final and current price that the government now collects is P950 per applicant, plus P50 “convenience fee” for payments made through authorized payment centers.
Even with the higher passport fee, the government’s profit share, 30 percent in favor of the government and 70 percent in favor of the Malabon printer, had been declining “despite growing annual net sales for calendar years 2016 to 2018,” said a Commission on Audit report in 2019.
According to same COA report, the Malabon venture paid P135 million in management fees from 2015-2017 without “provid(ing) information who was/were being paid the management fees,” another frustration shared by Zobel.
Earlier, COA also ordered the return of P7.5 million in allowances and benefits irregularly received by “chairman of the board of trustees” of APO-Production Unit from 2011 to 2016.
By COA’s audit, the revenue from the passport production had reached P3.36 billion in 2018.
Notwithstanding the legal and financial issues concerning the outsourcing contract, the rising tide of recurring passport fees had emboldened the Malabon printer to project itself joining the ranks of listed companies in the Philippine Stock Exchange.
“By the year 2018, UGEC will be a publicly-listed and globally-known design, commercial and security printing and packaging solutions partner and employer of choice,” United Graphic announced during the PNoy years, a statement that was still posted on its website yesterday.