The Mystery of Binga: Binga is still a pie to dip into?

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Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism ( Fourth of a series )

A month after changing its name to Binga Hydroelectric Plant Inc. (BHEPI), it increased its capital to P375 million and asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to exempt it from registering the additional P371 million fund infused by new stockholders.

It was then that Catalino Tan was elected company chairman and president. The Taiwanese investors, who were eased out of their directorship, asked the SEC to intervene, but the matter was left unresolved. Indeed, a petition for at least an SEC-supervised board meeting would not be entertained until after then President Fidel Ramos left office in 1998.

In the meantime, the Taiwanese watched as the renamed and reorganized company listed a certain Law Cho Shek as its majority stockholder. They took note that minutes of board meetings usually listed him as "absent" and that neither Tan nor his lawyers could produce any document identifying Law Cho Shek or stating how he bought into BHEPI.

This led the Taiwanese to suspect that Law Cho Shek did not exist at all, prompting Ho’s lawyer Jose Bernas to file perjury and estafa charges against Tan’s attorneys, Santiago Gabionza and Maria Rita Bonifacio.

Documents lodged with the SEC show that nobody had ever heard or seen Law Cho Shek. When the SEC later tried to subpoena him at his address, 616 Estraude St., Binondo, Manila, which also happened to be the office address of BHEPI, the summons was returned because no one knew who he was. The same thing happened with a justice department process server, who could not locate Law Cho Shek at that address. (Gabionza told the PCIJ to fax him the questions it wanted him to answer, but did not reply despite repeated follow-ups.)

The SEC finally acted on the BHEPI dispute during the administration of Joseph Estrada, whom the Taiwanese investors approached for help. But those involved say people close to Estrada saw the lucrative potential of the Binga plant, decided to take the contract for themselves.

On Jan. 25, 1999, the SEC appointed a management committee to take over the Binga contract, while the ownership dispute was being decided. Named committee chairman was Anthony Escolar who, his appointment papers showed, was "part of the Official List of Receivers" of the SEC.