Former Subic exec refutes allegations

The former treasurer of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) labeled fresh charges of corruption against her and former officials, including former chairman Richard Gordon, as a "canard by politically motivated people who do not understand the gargantuan task of securing, building and promoting a freeport from the ashes."

Julie Reyes, former SBMA treasurer, denounced the charges of corruption filed with the Office of the Ombudsman a few days before the elections.

The complainants — former SBMA state auditor Rizalde Dizon and former SBMA internal audit service head Antonio Mendoza — contested SBMA’s hiring of 1,200 personnel and 1,000 casuals from 1994 to 1996 and alleged that the officers illegally disbursed some P142 million in salaries.

"The newly formed SBMA in 1992 couldn’t have possibly done its gargantuan task of building a freeport from the ashes with only 241 people — which was the number of employees approved by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) at that time," Reyes said.

"That would have translated into only 80 people working on each eight-hour shift to secure and run the whole facility," she added.

She said the SBMA, at the start, sought from the national government a total of 2,200 personnel to protect and manage the 18,000-hectare, which included running an airport and several seaports, operating a power plant and water and sewage facilities, maintaining 1,876 homes, hotels and a golf course, and securing tracts of virgin forests.

Reyes said the complainants are lying and twisting the facts to make it appear that the hired employees were unnecessary for SBMA operations.

She said the SBMA was allowed to hire only a "ridiculously" low number of personnel — a total of 241 — by the DBM as it feared that the SBMA would not succeed in its vision.

But in 1996, the DBM, under then Secretary Salvador Enriquez, finally granted the SBMA petition to hire additional personnel. That was when it became apparent that Gordon’s formula for economic revival was working and that the place was coming back to life again.

Of some 27,000 volunteers at the Subic Freeport in the early 90s, the newly formed SBMA absorbed only 2,000 as employees and casuals.

Reyes noted that most of the 2,000 who were hired were displaced workers from the former naval base who knew a lot about the facilities in place.