AEDC lawyer bares alleged conspiracy on NAIA-3 operations

Former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Perfecto Yasay said yesterday the government’s expropriation tack for the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 (NAIA-3) was a "sinister means" of giving the facility back "on a silver platter" to Philippine International Air Terminals Co. (Piatco).

Yasay told reporters during the weekly Kapihan sa Sulu Hotel news forum in Quezon City that expropriating NAIA-3 would contravene a 2003 Supreme Court (SC) ruling barring Piatco from operating the terminal because alleged of irregularities in its build operate-contract with the government. Yasay is the lead counsel for Asia’s Emerging Dragon Corp., a Lucio Tan firm opposed to the government’s contract with Piatco.

Meanwhile, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez said President Arroyo wanted the government to take over and operate NAIA-3 in six months, or upon the payment of a $53-million or P3-billion initial compensation to Piatco.

Yasay bewailed that government went ahead with the expropriation procedures despite the SC ruling. He said the government’s action was a virtual recognition of Piatco’s ownership of the unfinished terminal building.

"I could not but suspect that certain governments officials resorted to expropriation as a sinister means of handling over in silver platter the premium public property to Piatco to profit tremendously as the expropriation established its claims for just compensation amounting to $565 million," he said.

Yasay also alleged that an expropriation scheme would prevent the opening of the books of Piatco and, in effect, conceal the irregularities in the contract and keep authorities from determining the right amount of compensation for the contractor.

Yasay said that under the law the government is the undisputed owner of NAIA-3 with Piatco as the builder entitled only to reasonable reimbursement of actual cost estimated at $175 million and not "just compensation."

He argued that since Piatco was "a builder in bad faith," it should only be entitled to "reasonable reimbursement" of no more than $175 million. The government’s contract with Piatco was invalidated in 2002 on grounds that certain provisions in the deal were illegally renegotiated by former President Joseph Estrada in 1998

With the developments, Yasay said he feared that Piatco would eventually take control of NAIA-3.

He said that since the government does not have the money to compensate Piatco and that Congress has not appropriated any amount for the acquisition and rebuilding of the terminal, the state may eventually let Piatco operate the facility.

Yasay said no right thinking investor, including the AEDC, would pay $565 million for a structure that only cost $175 million, and would cost $150 million more to make operational.

In an interview, DOJ’s Gonzalez said government was hoping for the prompt release of the P3-billion initial compensation to Piatco so that necessary repairs could be undertaken at the idle terminal.

"There is no other way but to follow the rule of law and that is to obey the order of the Court of Appeals although we disagree with it. But the court has set the hearing on the Piatco thing on the 5th of September. So we want to ensure that by then we can have it lifted. Then we release the money. We have the money, it’s already deposited with the Landbank," he said.

Gonzalez said the SC and the Pasay City regional trial court had ruled separately on the legality of government’s takeover of NAIA-3 upon the payment of P3 billion. The Pasay court is hearing the expropriation case.

He said the point raised by Ilocos Sur Rep. Salacnib Baterina that Piatco’s contractor Takenaka might assert itself in the case had already been addressed by Piatco itself when it promised the government that it would take care of all its obligations to contractors. — With James Mananghaya