I have long wanted to have a law prohibiting shopping malls from charging exorbitant parking fees.

Santa Banana, can you imagine how much the Ayalas, Lopezes, the Gokongweis and the Sys are making out of parking fees alone?

To me, it?s a rip-off in any language. People go to shopping malls and centers to shop and perhaps to eat at their restaurants. So, why make them pay for the use of parking spaces?

If these malls and centers are worried about people parking without buying or eating, why don?t they require parking validations?

Years back, former Nueva Ecija Rep. Rene Diaz and the late Senator Rene Cayetano, upon my suggestion, had a hearing on this scam?I call it a scam since these malls and centers take advantage of the public. Public hearings were held all right, but soon enough, like the Mona Lisa song, ??they just lie there and die there.??

I was told the lobby against a law forbidding these malls and centers from making oodles and oodles of money was so strong that nobody in Congress dared to renew the advocacies of the late Senator Cayetano, not even his daughter and son senators, and Diaz, who is back as an investment banker.

My gulay, that?s how the cookie crumbles?the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer!

***

The Senate investigation on the state of the pre-need industry and its ?need? for a bailout, as well as the collapse of so many rural banks causing people to lose their life savings, revealed the incompetence and the negligence of government regulators: the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

That incompetence and negligence, especially of the SEC, were so glaring that Chairman Fe Barin could only mutter that?s he lacked the personnel to carry out effectively the regulatory powers of the commission.

I could not believe what I heard her say. Barin was asked what took priority?the interest of the companies or that of the public, and she said the agency tried to balance the interests of both. Santa Banana, isn?t the SEC there to serve the public?

The need for monitoring and regulating the pre-need industry is nothing new. It became a priority after College Assurance Plans and the Yuchengco-owned Pacific Plans Inc. went belly-up after the deregulation of school fees, which adversely affected the open-ended educational plans of pre-need firms.

That was back in 2006. It?s now 2008, and after more than two years, the SEC hasn?t done anything to monitor insolvent pre-need firms. Santa Banana, what have they been doing?

On the other hand, the folding up of a cluster of rural banks owned by a businessman-politician is an indictment of BSP examiners who should be monitoring their operations and activities.

But, no, the BSP waited for these banks to be dissolved and promised the depositors that the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. would return their deposits, but only up to P250,000. Isn?t that another case of gross incompetence and negligence?

My gulay, the SEC doesn?t even have a single actuary to check on the pre-need industry and its trust funds. And would you believe, as Barin admitted, that the SEC only knows that a company is in peril once that company comes forward and applies for insolvency?

What kind of regulators can the public rely on?

***

The issue of the trust funds of pre-need companies is another story. The trust funds of pre-need firms are supposed to take care of the needs of beneficiaries of plan holders since these firms get money from the public on a promise to deliver when needed in education, pension and memorial services. In other words, they are peddling promises.

Thus, it?s incumbent on the part of the SEC to monitor?and well?how these trust funds are used, and more importantly, whether or not if they are capable of paying for the promises pre-need firms have made. The SEC cannot wash its hands of this responsibility as a public regulator.

If trust funds are inadequate, the SEC is mandated to make pre-need firms comply with regulations, and not shirk from responsibility by saying it has no actuary. Trust funds are entrusted to pre-need firms for the sole purpose of delivering a promise. The moment there?s no more trust in pre-need firms, the industry is dead.

***

The blatant incompetence and negligence of the SEC and BSP bank examiners on protecting public interest should be a message loud and clear for President Arroyo to clean up the administration of NPAs or ??non-performing assets.?? They reflect on the administration?s ability to protect public interest.

Take note of this: while the Senate has already passed on second reading a Code on the Pre-Need Industry, taking a cue from the collapse of CAP and PPI, the House of Representatives is not moving to have a counterpart legislation.

Why? Simply because many of the congressmen are also in cahoots with scammers among the pre-need firms.

President Arroyo must exercise strong political will and resolve to make the government?s regulatory bodies restore public confidence on government rules and regulations. If there?s need for a total overhaul of the SEC and excising the BSP of negligent and incompetent bank examiners, as the shoe commercial says it, ??Just do it!??

Come to think of it, weeding out all the incompetents and the negligent from government is now a must with GMA stepping out of power next year.