Now it’s overpriced science high school

MANILA, Philippines - Even as senators continue to hear testimonies on the alleged overpricing in the construction of the Makati City Hall parking building, another accusation has been hurled – this time that the city-funded Makati Science High School building was overpriced.

Lawyer Renato Bondal, who filed a complaint of plunder against Vice President Jejomar Binay and other former city officials in connection with alleged anomalies in the parking building project, told the Blue Ribbon subcommittee yesterday that the bidding for the Makati Science High School building had bloated the project cost by some P862 million.

Bondal said that at the cost of P1.5 billion, the 10-story Makati Science High School could be considered the most expensive school building in the country.

He argued that the city government has spent a total of P1.333 billion for the project so far.

Based on documents in his possession, Bondal claimed that the average cost per square meter of the building was at P72,500 and that the cost per classroom was P24.6 million.

Former Makati City General Services Department head Mario Hechanova, who previously served as the vice chairman of the city government’s Bids and Awards Committee, told the subcommittee that the bidding for the Makati Science High School project was also rigged in favor of Hilmarc’s Construction Corp.

“Bidding-biddingan lang yan at niluto namin yan (It was a phony bidding cooked by us),” Hechanova said.

Just like the parking building project, Hechanova said that there were instructions coming from his former boss, the late Makati City engineer Nelson Morales, that Hilmarc’s should be the winner of the bidding.

Hechanova said that J. Bros Construction and ITP Construction were named as the other bidders to make it appear that the process was legitimate.

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV said that a letter was sent to the committee by J. Bros reiterating the testimony given by its chief operating officer Alejandro Tengco that the firm never participated in any of the biddings for infrastructure projects held by the city government of Makati.

Bondal said that the Makati Science Building project, just like the parking building project, was implemented in phases, each of which underwent bidding.

In all of the biddings for the different phases, Bondal noted that Hilmarc’s was the lone bidder.

Bondal said the Makati Science High School building project was supposed to be 10 stories, four of which were intended for dormitories and a basement.

He said that the building now has seven floors and that as far as he knew, the four floors for dormitories have disappeared.

Bondal also claimed that access to the eighth to 10th floors was restricted, prompting Trillanes to propose an ocular inspection of the building by the subcommittee.

According to Hechanova, even the bidding for architectural works for the Makati Science High School building project was rigged to favor a firm called Infiniti Architectural Works.

Jose Francisco Aquino of the JFR Aquino Design, one of the losing bidders named in the project, testified before the hearing yesterday that his firm had never been involved in any government project.

Hechanova said that they picked the names of the other bidders for the architectural works at random.

In Mercado’s name

In the same hearing, former Makati City vice mayor Ernesto Mercado said he recently discovered that a portion of the 150-hectare estate in Rosario, Batangas being linked to Binay was in hi’s name.

Binay has denied the allegations that he owns the property and Chinese-Filipino businessman Antonio Tiu has come out claiming ownership over the farming estate.

Mercado said that he learned about his supposed ownership of a part of the estate through reports from the media.

He said that he sent his representatives to Rosario to check with local officials and was able to confirm that a portion of the property covering 42,157 square meters was indeed registered in his name.

Mercado said that the property under his name was within the 150-hectare Sunchamp Agri-Tourism Park of Tiu.

“If they (Binays) would maintain that the property is not theirs, then I will claim that land and be very thankful that I have it,” Mercado said in Filipino.

Based on his own inquiries into the Batangas estate, Mercado said that he discovered that a significant portion of the property claimed by Tiu was under the name of Anna Marie Gregorio.

She is the wife of Laureano Gregorio Jr., who was named by Tiu as the person who entered into an agreement with him for the sale of the property for P400 million.

Tiu said that he had paid a total of P11 million so far as downpayment but admitted that he does not have any of the titles yet in his possession.

Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano said that Tiu had presented nothing concrete to prove his ownership of the estate.

Cayetano said that the subcommittee representatives recently checked with the Batangas II Electric Cooperative, which has jurisdiction over the Rosario area, and found that the electricity bills of the Sunchamp Agri-Tourism Park were still being paid by Agrifortuna, the company supposedly owned by Gregorio.

During the hearing, Mercado also presented what he claimed were transactions and account balances for different dollar accounts in Hong Kong banks allegedly owned by the Vice President in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Showing a sample of several bank documents, which he said was contained in a balikbayan box sent over by someone close to the Binays, Mercado claimed that the Vice President did not provide a true declaration of his cash assets in his SALNs when he was still mayor of Makati City.

Early millionaire

Based on the documents, Mercado said that as early as 1988, Binay was already a millionaire with all his cash allegedly stashed in various dollar accounts in Hong Kong.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III, chairman of the Blue Ribbon subcommittee, said that the matter of the Vice President’s alleged non-declaration of cash assets in his SALN was no longer part of the coverage of the hearings being conducted.

However, he said this does not mean that the senators can no longer file resolutions in the future calling for a probe into the matter.

Pimentel has scheduled the next hearing of the subcommittee for Nov. 17.

Meanwhile, lawyers of Makati Mayor Jejomar Erwin Binay want the Senate Blue Ribbon subcommittee to provide him first with a list of questions before he accepts the panel’s invitation to attend its next hearing on the Makati City Hall Building 2 project.

“It’s his right under the law to be informed of the topic of the inquiry and of the questions to be asked,” lawyer Claro Certeza said. He said they had already written the committee about their request.

Certeza recalled a petition filed before the Supreme Court by former National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) director-general Romulo Neri against the Senate Blue Ribbon committee.

In 2007, Neri was invited to a joint congressional inquiry into the controversial government national broadband network deal with Chinese firm ZTE. He initially attended the hearing but skipped the rest, invoking executive privilege.

Neri sought to nullify a show cause order and a contempt order issued by the Senate Blue Ribbon against him. The Supreme Court would later rule in his favor.

Neri argued that the questions he was supposed to answer were covered by executive privilege. – Marvin Sy, Janvic Mateo, Mike Frialde