Seniors’ cakes cost only P300, Makati says

MANILA, Philippines - The Makati City government yesterday shot back at former Barangay Palanan chairman Renato Bondal and challenged him to show proof that the cakes given to senior city residents are worth P1,000 each.

Makati City administrator Eleno Mendoza said the purchase order for the cakes would show that the cakes were purchased by the city government from Bakerite at only P306.75 each. Bondal claimed during a hearing of the Senate’s Blue Ribbon committee on Wednesday that the cakes were bought by the city at P1,000 each.

“The figure cited by Mr. Bondal is totally false. Our documents will prove that and we will submit these documents to the Senate Blue Ribbon committee,” Mendoza said.

The city government gives cakes to its senior citizens on their birthday and during silver wedding anniversaries of senior couples.

Meanwhile, Makati City spokesman Joey Salgado said the incident at the Senate hearing, wherein Bondal brought several cakes, was a crude attempt to use the Senate “as a platform to raise malicious, baseless and non-existent allegations against the Binay family.”

“The city government has all the documents, and the purchases went through bidding as required by law,” he said.

Salgado added that the allegation that the cakes are overpriced also shows the pattern of lies being peddled by Bondal, starting with his claim of overpricing in the construction of the Makati City Hall Building 2.

Appearing before the Senate hearing, Makati Mayor Jejomar Erwin Binay said contrary to the claims of their detractors, the National Statistics Office (NSO) is not the final arbiter on overpricing, based on COA guidelines and rulings of the Supreme Court.

 “The NSO data gives a general computation of non-residential construction without differentiation. It is comparing apples and oranges. We pointed this out to show the unreliability of using these statistics to allege overpricing,” he said.

According to Binay, the complaint filed by Bondal before the Office of the Ombudsman uses as its basis construction data from the NSO to claim that the building was overpriced.

However, Binay said the NSO had also admitted that their data had limitations. The NSO based their computations on approved building

applications and documentary requirements, and not on actual construction cost, Binay said.

“It will also be inaccurate and erroneous to compare private buildings in Makati with the city hall building, or with other private buildings in the central business district, simply because building cost is determined among others by the type of building, the features of the building, and the type of soil on which the building is constructed,” he said.

Binay added that the allegation of overpricing has already been refuted in an intensive investigation conducted by COA in February in response to a request made by the complainants.  

COA Chairman Ma. Gracia Pulido-Tan, however, said during the Senate Blue Ribbon committee hearing Monday that the building project raised a “red flag” since it was divided into five phases where bidding was done separately for each phase.