Paper trail on NAIA-3 ‘transactions’ bared

The lawyer for Ilocos Sur Rep. Salacnib Baterina said the huge dollar fees paid to an alleged publicist of Philippine International Air Terminals Co. had been freely withdrawn by Piatco’s majority shareholder.

In a recent hearing in the sala of Judge Jesus Mupas of the Pasay City regional trial court (RTC) Branch 117, Baterina’s lawyer Jose Bernas said that on Sept. 27, 2000, Cheng Yong allegedly withdrew $88,100 or about P4.5 million from the bank account of controversial public relations (PR) practitioner Alfonso Liongson.

The government is seeking to take possession and operate the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 (NAIA-3), which was built by Piatco.

"Remember Alfonso Liongson who was supposed to be paid for PR services in millions of dollars? Supposedly he was being paid, but look at who was authorized to withdraw from his account? It’s Cheng Yong, the president of Piatco," Bernas said. "Why did he (Cheng) pay Liongson and then withdraw it from the account of Liongson?"

Bernas suspects that the money Cheng had withdrawn from Liongson’s account was "being used not for PR but for something else."

Bernas showed a withdrawal slip from Banco de Oro and said he also submitted documents showing the movement of money to and from Liongson’s two bank accounts in Hong Kong.

"These [transactions] are all detailed in government pleadings in Washington. I was also given a copy of the movement of Hong Kong accounts to which payments to Liongson were made. In the first place, I don’t know why they are paying for someone in Hong Kong for PR to be used in the Philippines," Bernas said.

He also noted that the accounts supposedly owned by "Alfonso Santos Liongson" were placed under the name of Jetstream Pacific Ltd. and Mainland Global Ltd — two companies apparently organized by lawyers of Piatco.

"I am telling you that these are the (pieces of) evidence that government has. Whether these (constitute) money laundering or not is a conclusion. These are what the government has and the government has been saying that the contract was obtained through graft and corruption. I don’t know why government has not brought out the evidence in its possession on fraud and corruption charges," Bernas said.

Baterina, through his lawyer, also urged Mupas to dismiss the expropriation case filed by the government against Piatco since there is reportedly a failure to implead the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) as "an indispensable party" to the case.

Bernas said Piatco acknowledged that NAIA-3 "stands on land belonging to BCDA which was leased to the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) and sublet to defendant (Piatco)."

Piatco had commissioned the construction of the terminal based on a contract with the government that was later declared void by the Supreme Court. The government seeks to take possession and operate the terminal.

Bernas said that instead of expropriation, the government should have initiated "ejectment and reimbursement" proceedings against NAIA-3 builders so the government would only pay for actual construction costs rather than the estimated value of the facility.

Bernas said "it is possible that parties involved in the case could not be clearly explaining all of these to the President."

"Why will government pay Piatco more than the construction cost incurred by Piatco? It is obviously wrong," he said, adding that this whole exercise is being used to pay Piatco more money than it should get.

Bernas also alleged that "by filing this expropriation case, the government concedes that the owner is Piatco because if not, the government could have just subjected the matter to ordinary ejectment proceedings. Why expropriation? Maybe because they don’t want this (fraud and corruption) to come out in the open, and they are more interested in discussing the amount of compensation to Piatco."

Meanwhile, Asia’s Emerging Dragon Corp. (AEDC) of tycoon Lucio Tan said a recent ruling by Mupas that barred government from issuing leases to international airlines and concessionaires for office and commercial space in NAIA-3 until it pays Piatco should make the government withdraw its "inappropriate and incorrect" expropriation case so it can "rectify its mistake."

"If they withdraw, then all they have to do is pay Piatco as the builder of the actual cost minus the damages to the government because it was done in bad faith. That is the only course of action if they are going to withdraw," lawyer Perfecto Yasay, who represents AEDC, told reporters.

He earlier said the government had made a grave error in filing the expropriation case to take over NAIA-3 since expropriation cases are only filed by government when it wants to acquire a private land and the Pasay City land where Piatco built NAIA-3 is clearly government land that is under the ownership of the BCDA.

The government filed an expropriation case with the Pasay court in December 2004 and subsequently took over NAIA-3 in December 2005.

The government, through the MIAA, earlier tried to enter into lease contract agreements with international airlines now operating at NAIA Terminal 1 for them to start constructing their office and counter spaces at NAIA-3 for the soft opening.

Upon the advice of the Office of the Solicitor General, MIAA had stopped doing so and filed a motion before the lower court seeking permission to issue the lease agreements first.

Last March 31, AEDC filed a motion for intervention in the government’s expropriation case and asked the court to stop the expropriation proceedings until it has resolved AEDC’s claim that it should be awarded the right to build an international airport terminal or at least operate the mothballed NAIA-3 as the original proponent of the project.

The AEDC, during the term of then President Fidel Ramos, submitted an unsolicited proposal to build an international airport for Manila to replace the aging and decrepit NAIA-1 under a build-operate-transfer arrangement.

The AEDC was then owned by five Filipino-Chinese businessmen — Tan, John Gokongwei Jr., George Ty, Alfonso Yuchengco and Henry Sy. Tan bought out the other businessmen more than a year ago.

The AEDC said in its motion that both the government and Piatco, whose contract to build and run the terminal was voided by the Supreme Court, "omitted vital information" that AEDC is the unchallenged original proponent of the project.

In a December 2004 ruling then Pasay RTC judge Henrick Gingoyon told the government to pay $63 million or P3 billion as initial compensatory amount to Piatco before it can take over the facility. Gingoyon was slain by suspected killers-for-hire in late December 2005 and the case was raffled off to Mupas. — With Rainier Allan Ronda