‘I want billionaires in prison’: Duterte calls out Ayala and MVP over water concession deals

The two water utilities in the country is again at the spotlight of the Chief Executive’s attention.

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte said that he wants to jail the owners of Manila Water and Maynilad Manila Water chairman Fernando Zobel de Ayala and Maynilad chairman Manuel Pangilinan, for having committed what he described as syndicated estafa against consumers for years.

“’Yung nagtatanong kayo, saan ‘yung big fish? Saan ‘yung mga corruption, saan ‘yung malalaki? Oh, ideliver ko na sa inyo ngayon. Si Ayala pati si Pangilinan,” Duterte said in his speech in North Cotabato.

(photo credit to owner)

(To those who are asking where are the big fish in corruption, I will deliver to you… Ayala and Pangilinan.)

The two – Ayala and Pangilinan have earned the ire of the President over the water concession agreements entered by their respective companies with the Philippine government, to which the latter called “onerous.”

President has ordered the review of the contract by the Secretary of Justice and vows to go after the businessmen behind the two firms whom he has accused guilty of “economic plunder.”

“That is f…g contract. On the other hand, I go after them,” he said.

“’Pag nagkamali yang gagong yan, ipakukulong ko talaga sila. Huh. Kita mo maski anong insulto ko, hindi na sumasagot. Sigurado swak sila. Syndicated estafa,” Duterte said.”

“I want billionaires inside the prison,” he added.

“They are just water distributors. But as it turned out, they are the richest and they think they are the owners of water. That’s why in the contracts they are the only allowed to implement (an) increase…not the government,” the President said.

“We surrendered (our) sovereignty on that,” he said, explaining that the contract considered water as a commodity and not part of the country’s natural resources. He referred to it as a “really crooked way of interpreting a Constitution.”

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Report from PDI