Binays got P1 B from Makati janitorial deals? VP denies story

MANILA, Philippines - An estimated P1.26 billion in kickbacks from the janitorial and security services contracts of the city government of Makati allegedly went to Vice President Jejomar Binay and his family, the former head of the Makati general services department (GSD) said yesterday.

Mario Hechanova, who apart from being the former GSD head was also a former chairman of the bids and awards committee of Makati City, told the Senate Blue Ribbon subcommittee hearing yesterday that the kickbacks were derived from the padding of requirements of the city for security and janitorial personnel and the administrative cost imposed on these contracts.

Hechanova is currently in the witness protection program of the Department of Justice as a result of his testimony against the Vice President and his family in the Senate hearings on the alleged anomalies involving Binay.

The Vice President’s spokesman maintained yesterday that all contracts entered into by the Makati City government under the term of Binay were aboveboard.

“All these contracts underwent and passed several audits by the Commission on Audit (COA),” said Rico Quicho, Binay’s spokesman for political affairs.

Quicho said after more than a year, Binay’s accusers in the Senate have failed to come up with “concrete proof” to prove their allegations against him.

“Aside from Powerpoint presentations and allegations, where are the concrete evidence? It’s easy to accuse, but it’s hard to make the lies true,” he said. 

Meanwhile, the Vice President’s daughter, Makati Rep. Abigail Binay, also said there was nothing irregular with the disbursement of funds from her Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) to the former head of the Makati Social Welfare Development Department.

“Why don’t they present the 15 checks? Because I was not the one who signed the checks?” Rep. Binay said in a press conference in Quezon City yesterday afternoon.

She said the local government unit’s treasurer was the one who signed the checks, adding that there was nothing wrong with the issuance of checks to Barcelo since he was head of the MSWD.

Barcelo has denied Trillanes’ claim that there were “ghost” senior citizen beneficiaries in Makati.

Trillanes said it could be the reason Barcelo has been defending the Binays.

Rep. Binay turned emotional yesterday as she narrated how their family deals with all the issues hurled against them everyday.

“We’re no longer watching TV and reading newspapers,” a teary-eyed Rep. Binay said.

“It’s easy to accuse, it’s easy to criticize but is it easy if you’re the one on the receiving end? Just wake me up when it’s May 2016 already, once it’s (done,” she said, her voice choking with emotion.

According to Hechanova, the practice of the city government was to pad the personnel requirements for janitorial and security services by 10 percent, which he said were nonexistent.

The budget for the 10 percent allegedly went to the Vice President as his kickback for these contracts.

Violeta Lazo, the current officer-in-charge of the GSD, told the Blue Ribbon subcommittee that over the period 2005 to 2014, the city government of Makati spent a total of P2.38 billion for its security services.

The contract involves the hiring of 600 security personnel annually and according to Hechanova, 10 percent or 60 of these personnel were nonexistent.

With a monthly salary of P30,000 per security personnel, Hechanova said that the 60 ghost security personnel cost the city government a total of P216 million for the 10-year period.

As far as the administrative costs or what Hechanova called profit is concerned, the city government allegedly took 20 percent from the contract cost, the total of which he said would amount to P648 million in 10 years.

In the case of the janitorial services, 850 personnel were hired annually and paid P20,000 a month in salary.

Hechanova said that the 10 percent or 85 ghost employees translate to a kickback of P204 million during the 10-year period.

In terms of profit, Hechanova said that the total take would amount to P612 million for the same period.

Adding up the alleged kickbacks from the two services, Hechanova said that this would amount to P1.26 billion.

Lazo also reviewed the contracts for the information technology services of the city government for the period 2008 to 2014, total cost of which she said was P926.4 million.

She explained that the contract was only for services and that no purchase of hardware was involved.

Hechanova did not provide a computation for the IT services, but according to Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, the kickback from the contracts would amount to over P700 million.

For all three services reviewed by Lazo, the total expenditure of the city government of Makati was pegged at P5.6 billion.

“At least now we have an idea. In the P5 billion in contracts here, P2 billion easily went to the Binay family or the Vice President in particular,” Trillanes said.

Just like the bidding for the infrastructure projects of the city government of Makati that were taken up by the Blue Ribbon subcommittee, the bidding for the three services was also found to have suspicious elements, particularly the personalities behind the winning bidders.

In her presentation yesterday, Lazo noted that the same companies always win in the bidding.

During the 10-year period that she reviewed, Lazo pointed out that up to 92 percent of the contracts went to one or two companies only. – With Helen Flores