Senators won’t buy Tsinoy trader’s story

MANILA, Philippines - As he promised, businessman Antonio Tiu faced a Senate Blue Ribbon subcommittee yesterday, but failed to convince its members that he instead of Vice President Jejomar Binay is the owner of a 150-hectare agricultural estate in Rosario, Batangas.

The subcommittee investigating an allegedly overpriced parking building constructed by the city government of Makati rejected Tiu’s claim.

Tiu, chief executive officer of Greenergy Holdings Inc., has been granting interviews and taking out print advertisements to defend his reputation as a legitimate businessman and denying the allegations that Binay is the actual owner of the Batangas property.

With lawyer Martin Subido, who serves as his companies’ corporate secretary at his side, Tiu said he entered into an agreement with the known owner of the property, Gregorio Laureano Jr., to purchase it for a total cost of P446 million sometime in 2013.

Tiu said he has paid a total P11 million as down payment to Laureano in the amounts of P6 million last year and P5 million this year.

Tiu said he has no knowledge about the Vice President owning any part of the property and that all he is aware of was that Binay leased only nine hectares for his piggery business and orchid farm.

Subido said the piggery business was sold by the Vice President to Laureano’s Agrifortuna Inc. in 2010 when he won the elections.

Upon questioning by Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano, Tiu admitted that what his company purchased was the usufruct, or the right to use the property.

Tiu argued that even if it was just the usufruct that he paid for, he has the legal right and ownership to whatever is constructed on the property.

When Tiu bought into the estate owned by Agrifortuna Inc. of Laureano, through his previous company Sunchamp Real Estate Development Corp., he said a rest house with swimming pool, pavilion, kew garden, 3,000 mango trees and a small zoo with horses and goats were already there.

Senators Cayetano and Antonio Trillanes IV were not convinced that Tiu was the actual owner of the property since he does not possess any of the titles at the moment.

Trillanes said it was clear to him that Tiu was being used as a dummy of Binay for the Batangas property because he does not have any title to support his claim of ownership.

Tiu admitted his company has not even booked the property as an asset in spite of his claims of ownership.

The committee will conduct an ocular inspection of the Batangas estate today in order to see for themselves what was actually on it because of the conflicting claims of Tiu and former Makati City vice mayor Ernesto Mercado, who previously presented aerial footage and pictures of the area.

Connections

Lawyer Renato Bondal, a former barangay official of Makati City who filed a plunder case against the Vice President, claimed Tiu and Binay’s relationship was far deeper than portrayed by the two.

According to Bondal, James Tiu, the brother of Tiu, and his wife, Anne Loraine Buencamino, gave a total of P15 million to the campaign of Binay in 2010, as seen in the reports of contribution filed by the couple.

The documents showed James Tiu and his wife made two contributions in the amounts of P5 million and P2.5 million on March 14, 2010 and March 18, 2010, to the campaign of Binay.

Bondal said the couple were the biggest contributors to Binay’s campaign chest.

He questioned the ability of Tiu to make such huge contributions, considering that he only worked as a Chinese interpreter for Philippine Airlines for two years ending in 2008, as manager of Fresh & Green Corp. from 2008 to 2009 and as director of his brother’s Greenergy Holdings Inc. from 2010 to 2013.

Bondal said he is convinced someone used James Tiu to donate those amounts to Binay in 2010.

Apart from the campaign contributions, Bondal also claimed Tiu and Binay collaborated in the formation of a party-list group called the Alyansa ng Mga Namumuhay sa Agrikulturang Industriya ng Pilipinas Inc., known as ANI-Pilipinas.

Bondal based his claim on the background of the nominees of the party-list group, which include James Tiu; Ponciano Subido, the founding partner of the Subido Pagente Certeza Mendoza & Binay law firm; Claro Certeza, legal counsel of Makati City Mayor Jejomar Erwin Binay Jr.; Dennis Sia, a former official of Agri-Nurture Inc., which is also owned by Tiu; Maria Rosa Mystica DJ Mendoza, chief of staff of the Vice President’s daughter Mar-len Abigail Binay; Albert Subido, the brother of Martin Subido; and Maribeth Pagente, founding partner of the Subido Pagente Certeza Mendoza & Binay law firm.

Binay’s hidden wealth?

Mercado again appeared before the Senate hearing yesterday where he denied the claims of the Vice President that he was paid to testify against him.

He said the only offer of money he received came from the camp of Binay, the purpose of which he said was to silence him.

Mercado said he was approached by some common friends of his and Binay after his second appearance at the Senate to ask him to stop testifying against the Vice President.

“There were hints of money coming my way if I stopped talking. Then they raised the ante and asked me how much I wanted in exchange for my silence,” Mercado said in Filipino.

Trillanes claimed former Makati City engineer Nelson Irasga was supposed to testify at the Senate hearings but was reportedly paid off by the camp of Binay in the amount of P10 million.

In his testimony, Mercado said the Meriras Realty Corp. was established by Binay in order to hide his many properties, including an 8,877-square meter property worth P1 billion in Makati.

Mercado showed several documents prepared by Binay’s alleged bagman Gerry Limlingan, asking “M-1” to go over the restructuring and capital increase of Meriras.

He said M-1 referred to Binay, as the Mayor of Makati City, while he was referred to as M-2 as the vice mayor. – Cecille Suerte Felipe