‘Government will release Impsa papers’

Malacañang is ready to produce documents showing that it was not Justice Secretary Hernando Perez but his immediate predecessor at the department, Artemio Tuquero, who signed the "legal go-signal" that paved the way for an Argentinean power firm to implement the $450-million project awarded to it by the government.

Presidential Spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao said yesterday these documents will be presented in the scheduled appearance of deposed President Joseph Estrada at the Senate public hearing on Tuesday to shed light on the deal with the Industrias Metalurgicas Pescarmona Sociedad Anonima (Impsa).

"It’s the Senate prerogative and all of the documents are there. In the case of Impsa, it appears (that) it was Estrada who approved it, signed it. It was Justice Secretary Tuquero who, in June 2000, approved it," Tiglao said.

He alluded to official Malacañang documents earlier reported by The STAR which showed that Estrada had indeed signed two documents related to the Impsa contracts.

One document, dated Feb. 10, 2000, showed Estrada signed as a "witness" to the authorization of National Power Corp. (Napocor) officials to negotiate the build-rehabilitate-operate-transfer (BROT) agreement for the CBK project with Impsa.

Another Palace document showed Estrada also signed as a "witness" on the last page of the 73-page BROT agreement for the same project.

"There are many signatures with Erap as witness, but the legal go-head was Tuquero’s signature in June 2000," Tiglao told reporters. "If you look at Nani’s so-called approval, it was simply a reaffirmation of Tuquero’s approval."

Estrada confirmed to The STAR yesterday he had indeed signed these two documents but insisted these were "not the operative" documents that paved the way for Impsa to proceed with the contract and that it was the Perez-signed legal opinion that implemented it.

This is why, Tiglao said, Malacañang is least perturbed about the supposed "bombshell" that Estrada will make when he was given by the Sandiganbayan a one-day pass from his hospital detention to allow him to testify at the Senate hearing next week on the Impsa legislative inquiry.

Although Perez has been on leave since Nov. 28 following the $2 million extortion charges against him by Manila Rep. Mark Jimenez, Tiglao said he will be given by the Senate an equal opportunity to rebut whatever Estrada will present at the hearing.

"We’re confident that Perez, of course, will provide his own legal defense, or petition the Senate to allow him or his representative to explain their side," Tiglao said.

The Senate invited Estrada to the hearing on the questioned Impsa contract entered into by Napocor, on the rehabilitation of the Caliraya-Botocan-Kalayaan (CBK) hydroelectric plant, which Estrada claimed was approved when Perez signed it just four days after President Arroyo assumed office in January last year.

Estrada earlier claimed that Jimenez’s $2 million extortion charges against Perez were actually related to the alleged $14 million "donation offer" which was dangled to the former president by Jimenez, acting as an agent of Impsa.

Tiglao said that Perez signed the questioned legal opinion of the DOJ which, after conducting a review, found nothing anomalous nor irregular in the Impsa contract.

He also said the Arroyo administration, then newly installed, would send wrong signals to the international community by subjecting the Impsa contract to another review just because it took over the government from the Estrada administration.

"If the contract was clean, by the book, all approvals were secured, it would not have been a good message to the international community to review it again," Tiglao said, noting that unlike in the case of the Philippine International Air Terminals Co. (Piatco) case, there were no specific complaints against Impsa.

Tiglao was referring to the Piatco contract for the construction of the Ninoy Aquino international Airport Terminal 3, which Mrs. Arroyo earlier declared null and void due to its supposed flawed contract provisions.

In a telephone interview, Estrada recalled that he signed as witness to this Impsa contract "because it was already approved by the National Economic Development Board during the Ramos administration."

However, he said Impsa could not carry out this project without funding if they could not secure the "sovereign guarantee" of the Philippine government being required from them by their creditor banks.

Estrada’s administration earlier declared its policy against any grant of "sovereign guarantee" of the Philippine government being required from them by their creditor banks.

However, Estrada said the Impsa contract he signed could not proceed to the next step, which was to secure a legal opinion from the DOJ.