THE camp of Vice President Jejomar Binay on Tuesday described Senator Antonio Trillanes IV’s “bombshell’’ at Senate Blue Ribbon subcommittee investigation hearing as another dud after officials debunked his claim that city funds were used to subsidize a University of Makati program.
The events at the Senate led Binay’s lawyer JV Bautista to take Senate President Franklin Drilon to task “sleeping and condoning” what is happening in the Senate Blue Ribbon subcommittee which has already held 19 hearings on Binay’s supposed corruption.
Vice Mayor Allan Jun Sanchez ask senators to spare the town the
recrimination that will possibly arise from the hearings against Vice
President Jejomar Binay. LINO SANTOS
Another Binay lawyer Rico Quicho, Binay’s political spokesperson, said Trillanes’ latest bombshell showed that the hearings have clearly evolved a show opera meant to boost Trillanes’ presidential aspirations.
“Once again, records belie the malicious claims of Trillanes. The Senate hearings have so far produced nothing but totally unsubstantiated claims against the Vice President,” Quicho said in a statement.
Quicho claimed that no Makati City official in the University of Makati’s (UMak) Board of Trustees benefited from the UMak’s Public-Private Partnership program, as alleged by Trillanes.
The senate probe did not find concrete evidence that Makati officials who are members of the UMak board in a regular or ex-officio capacity – including Vice President Jejomar C. Binay – received dividends or shares of profits at any given time.
“The Vice President merely represented the City of Makati in the Joint Venture Project as evidenced by the City Council Resolutions and Ordinances. He never held any business interests therein in his own capacity,” he added.
Quicho said based on the Articles of Incorporation of the Philippine Health Educators Inc., the Joint Venture Company of the City of Makati and STI, “Vice President Binay held only one qualifying share in the Company for the sole purpose of representing the City of Makati in the board of directors of the said Company.”
“It’s a good thing Senator Trillanes was never in the AFP’s Explosives and Ordnance Division otherwise he would have been an embarrassment to the unit because all of the bombs he produced in the Senate hearings turned out to be duds,” Quicho quipped.
He likewise belittled Renato Bonda’s latest claim of overpricing, this time with the UMak nursing building.
“As we have expected, this is another fantastic tale without any factual basis from the same person who admitted his outlandish claim of overpriced birthday cakes were simply guesswork or ‘hula,’’ he said.
Quicho clarified the higher fees in the College of Nursing Bondal mentioned only applied to non-Makati
At the same time, Bautista questioned why Drilon allowed taxpayers money to be wasted on a series of hearings that has yet to produce evidence to prove Binay’s alleged corruption.
“They want the Liberal party to have an advantage so that they also have the fund raising at the DOTC, the Customs,” Bautista said. “There are billions of pesos earned in preparation for the elections.”
He pointed out that Drilon is allowing such demolition job using the Senate because they want to destroy their political opponents since Drilon is the vice chairman of the Liberal Party, which has yet to announce its standard bearer who will slug it out with Binay in next year’s elections.
“Their biggest rival now is Binay who is leading in all surveys despite what is going on in this committee. It would seem that (Sen. Antonio) Trillanes IV is not from this planet, and instead from another planet. He continues what he has been doing and yet his rating would not go up and that of Binay would not go down. They are doing a great disservice to the people,” Bautista said.
Testifying for the nth time before the subcommittee, lawyer Renato Bondal accused the Vice President of using famous ophthalmologist Jack Arroyo, nephew of former Senator Joker Arroyo as his nominee/ dummy in the Philippine Healthcare Educators Inc. (PHEI).
Bondal said Arroyo got 20 percent shares in dividends from PHEI, a private firm created to manage and collect shares from the joint venture between University of Makati and the Systems Technology Institute (STI).
Bondal claimed that Arroyo’s uncle was a lawyer of Makati Mayor Junjun Binay when he was investigated in the Senate over the P2.1-billion overpriced Makati building.
But Bautista said “they are fond of accusing everybody as dummy.”