A LAWYER accused Vice President Jejomar Binay Thursday of pocketing P1 billion in kickbacks from low-cost housing projects in Makati City and Calauan, Laguna, but admitted to reporters he didn’t have enough evidence to substantiate his accusations.
“I have a pretty good feeling there was overpricing,” said lawyer Renato Bondal, who testified before the Senate Blue Ribbon subcommittee that held its 18th hearing to date on allegations of corruption against Binay.
“We have sought the assistance of the Senate committee to subpoena all the documents so that it can also help us determine exactly,” said Bondal, who had run against Makati Mayor Jejomar Erwin Binay Jr. and lost.
A Binay spokesman, JV Bautista, said Bondal’s computations presented before the Senate came “out of thin air.”
He added that the Langdon and Seah construction cost handbook, which Bondal used as basis to arrive at his conclusion of overpricing, cannot be used in evaluating public works projects.
He added that overpricing had to be technically determined and could not be arrived at through speculative computing.
In his testimony Thursday, Bondal said Binay said got P195 million from the overpricing in the Makati Friendship Suites and P900 million from the Makati HomeVille project in Barangay Dayap, San Isidro, Laguna.
He pointed out that these projects went beyond the threshold price of P50 million for plunder.
Bondal had earlier sued Binay and his son, Mayor Binay of Makati, for plunder and graft, which led the Ombudsman to impose a six-month preventive suspension on the mayor.
The order is being challenged before the Court of Appeals.
Bondal said the Makati city government during the time of Binay purchased three five-storey “shell buildings” from the Guadalupe Bliss Project to house squatters and victims of fire.
An ordinance for the procurement of the buildings in the amount of P17.2 million was passed in 2002 by the city council then headed by former Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado.
However, Bondal said the buildings were converted and refurbished into a hotel to accommodate the city’s visitors coming from Makati’s sister cities and municipalities.
The supposed intended beneficiaries of the housing project were moved to the Laguna relocation site where they lived under substandard conditions, he said.
Bondal said the city government declared it spent P242 million for the renovation of the three buildings, which included the “finishing touches, the tile flooring, the painting and the ceilings.”
But based on construction manual estimates, the expenses incurred should have amounted to only P47 million such that there was an overpricing of P195 million.
Bondal accused Binay of using public funds to curry favor with Makati’s sister cities and municipalities, causing a drain on the city government’s resources.
At this point, the panel chairman, Senator Aquilino Pimentel III, asked Bondal if he had the data to support his allegations, but Bondal said he would ask the Commission on Audit for help.
Pimenel immediately offered to subpoena the records.
For the 40-hectare housing project in Laguna, Makati paid P120 million and allocated P300 million for Phase 1 and P600 million for Phase 2, but built nothing on the land.
Squatters who were relocated there built their own homes from the materials of their demolished houses, Bondal added.
“During that time, there were no faucets as there was no water. There were no cables as there was no electricity. If one was to celebrate his birthday, he had to inform the administration office, which is the only place in the Makati HomeVille which has electricity,” said Bondal.
The office would then run a cable to the house of the birthday celebrant, but the power would be cut at midnight, he said.
Residents Domingo Arcilla and Edison Rivera testified about the poor conditions at the relocation site and accused Binay of failing to keep his promise to provide them decent homes.
The subcommittee said it would inspect the relocation site after a request from Senator Antonio Trillanes IV.
But Bautista insisted that the relocation site’s contractor, Twin Leaf, a company owned by former Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado, should be held accountable for the poor living conditions of the relocated families.
He said not all of the needs of Homeville residents, even the small ones, should be given by the mayor.
Also on Thursday, Mayor Binay asked the Court of Appeals to cite Trillanes for contempt for accusing two of its associate justices of receiving bribes of P25 million bribe each in exchange for the issuance of temporary restraining order and subsequently, a writ of preliminary injunction stopping the Office of the Ombudsman from implementing its six-month preventive suspension order against him.
In a petition, Binay said Trillanes should be meted out the maximum penalty under the law for besmirching the dignity of the judiciary with his baseless accusations.
The Makati City mayor said that by “maliciously and baselessly” accusing CA Associate Justices Jose Reyes Jr. and Francisco Acosta of receiving bribes, Trillanes was guilty of contempt of court.
The mayor has also filed a libel complaint against Trillanes before the Makati City Prosecutor’s Office.
A Makati city councilor on Thursday debunked Bondal’s allegations that the Makati Friendship Suites were overpriced.
Councilor Marie Alethea Casal-Uy, spokesperson of the incumbent mayor, said Bondal has again resorted to guesswork to claim overpricing in the Makati Friendship Suites.
“Government construction costs are governed by the Government Procurement Act and the rules and regulations of the Commission on Audit. The Davis Langdon and Seah Construction Cost Handbook cited in previous hearings by Senator Alan Cayetano and invoked by Bondal is not among them,” she said.
Uy pointed out that the book even had a qualification that said it cannot be used as substitute for actual construction costs.
She said the procurement law allows the implementation of projects in phases, especially for local government units, since they are dependent on the availability of funds through local sources.
“What is important is each phase underwent bidding as required by law,” Uy said.
The city councilor said initially, the project was intended to complement the city’s informal settlers’ relocation program. However, by the time the buildings were completed in 2009, the city government had acquired vast tracts of land in San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan and Calauan, Laguna as relocation sites for Makati’s squatters.
Uy also clarified that the Makati Friendship Suites is not exclusively for the use of visitors from sister localities. She said the City Council passed an ordinance authorizing the opening of the facility to the public for an introductory uniform rate of P2,100 for all room types.
“Our critics seem to have this misguided notion about the sisterhood program of Makati as they keep harping on the issue. They may not be aware that the Department of the Interior and Local Government itself supports twinning programs,” Uy said.
In fact, she said, the DILG has issued memorandum circular 97-306 setting the guidelines in establishing national or international sister-city or town-twinning relationships, while the Bureau of Local Government Supervision of DILG is tasked to assist local governments in establishing sisterhood ties.
“The city government believes that by linking up with other towns and cities, we can create dynamic partnerships through which both parties can realize shared goals and improve the quality of life of our respective constituents,” Uy said.
Uy reiterated the commitment of the city government to look after the welfare of its relocated informal settlers. “Even if they now reside in Bulacan and Laguna, we still consider them citizens of Makati,” she said.
According to the Makati Social Welfare Department, some 1,031 families have been relocated at Makati Home Ville in Calauan, while some 412 families are living in Makati GK Dreamland Ville in San Jose del Monte City.
As a result, the city government has been able to bring down the number of informal settlers from 6,939 families in 2013 to 4,778 families to date.
The Binays and more than 20 city government officials were slapped with plunder before the Office of the Ombudsman on the complaints filed by Bondal and another former city village official Nicolas Enciso in connection with the alleged overpriced Makati City Hall Building II.
Both the mayor and the Vice President have maintained that the allegations of overpricing did not have factual or legal basis, and were made as part of an organized demolition campaign against the Vice President, who is the leading contender for the presidency in the 2016 elections.
Bondal and Enciso, both former chairpersons of barangays Palanan and Olympia, respectively, claim in their complaint that the New Makati City parking building was overpriced by P1.3 billion.
Mayor Binay said earlier that the plunder case filed with the Ombudsman was just the beginning of a bigger plan against his family as they expects more cases to be filed by their detractors in the coming days.
“They will be filing complaints on the Friendship Suites, Makati Science High School, the new Ospital ng Makati, our birthday cakes for seniors, among other programs,” he predicted.
The Vice President’s daughter, Senator Nancy Binay, taunted Trillanes Thursday, saying if he wanted to see her family in jail, he should go to the judiciary.
“That job belongs to a judge or justice,” Binay said.
“It is not our job as senators to put people behind bars,” Binay added.
She also challenged Trillanes to explain the P245 million in funds he received from the Disbursement Acceleraton Program, which was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Trillanes shot back, saying that Senator Binay channeled P300 million from her pork barrel allocation to the National Housing Authority, an agency under the Housing Urban and Development Coordinating Council, which is under her father, the Vice President.
Senator Binay denied the charge and showed a copy of her letter to the Senate finance committee chairman, Senator Francis Escudero, asking him to delete her P200 million pork barrel from the 2014 national budget.
“I had my PDAF deleted, I dare Senator Trillanes to prove that he has no PDAF in 2013,’’ she said.