Miriam to unmask more in scam

Pro-administration Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago is set to unmask today more officials who are behind an alleged multibillion-peso scam involving the Smokey Mountain reclamation project in Tondo, Manila.

Over the weekend, Santiago vowed to name "more public officials who apparently pushed for this unconstitutional, illegal, invalid, and criminal contract between the National Housing Authority and R-II Builders involving at least 79 hectares of reclaimed land in Manila Bay."

She takes the floor this afternoon to answer her colleagues’ questions about the exposé she made last Wednesday, in which she blamed former President Fidel Ramos for the R-II Builders’ contract.

After the question-and-answer period, the Senate is expected to refer Santiago’s exposé to its Blue Ribbon Committee for investigation.

Santiago has so far dragged only the names of Ramos, who defeated her in the 1992 presidential elections by about 800,000 votes, and big-time contractor Reghis Romero II, owner of R-II Builders, in the controversy.

But last Saturday, the name of a Ramos administration official, that of housing czar Dionisio de la Serna, came up.

In denying Romero’s claim that he had ruled that the Tondo project was legal when he was Ramos’ justice secretary, Senate President Franklin Drilon said he never passed upon the legality of the deal because the issue was never brought to the Department of Justice (DOJ) during his watch.

However, he said De la Serna sought his opinion on whether subsequent substantial revisions in the contract required another public bidding or was a supplemental contract sufficient.

De la Serna was then head of the Smokey Mountain development project executive committee.

In the first opinion he issued on Aug. 26, 1993, then Justice Secretary Drilon said under Presidential Decree 1594, a new bidding was not necessary if it could be determined that the revisions were inseparable from the scope of the original plans.

Such determination should be made by the executive committee for the project led by De la Serna, he said.

Two months later, Ramos’ housing czar came back to the DOJ with another query on the same subject.

"I just reiterated my previous opinion," said Drilon of his second ruling dated Nov. 12, 1993.

According to him, the original contract called for the construction of 3,500 "permanent" housing units and the reclamation of 40 hectares with R-II Builders shouldering the cost of P2.2 billion. The contractor would get the reclaimed land as payment.

The contract was awarded through public bidding, said Drilon. But according to Santiago, there was no public bidding and the deal was given to Romero through negotiations.

The revisions were the construction of additional housing units and an incinerator, and the establishment of a river barge waste transport system. The changes increased the project cost to P17 billion.

Other revisions were apparently made since both Santiago and Romero are now talking of reclaimed land as big as 79 hectares which the senator claimed would be given to the contractor as his payment.

Romero said no land has been paid to him, though he admitted having bought a lot in the reclaimed area, the size of which he could not remember.

The area has been transformed into a huge commercial-industrial-port complex. Business locators, including retail giant Makro, are operating there. Makro reportedly bought a two-hectare lot costing more than then P1 billion. A big port is now also operational. What exactly is Romero’s role in the commercial operation of the complex is not clear.

Santiago claims NHA cannot sell any part of the reclaimed area or give it to Romero as payment because that would violate the Constitution and the Supreme Court ruling in the equally controversial Public Estates Authority-Amari case.