Laurel’s arraignment set April 28

The Sandiganbayan’s fifth division has set the arraignment of former Vice President Salvador "Doy" Laurel on April 28 for graft charges filed against him by the Office of the Ombudsman in connection with the alleged Expo Pilipino scam in 1998.

Laurel, former head of the National Centennial Commission (NCC), is expected to enter a plea of not guilty.

Presiding Justice Minita Chico-Nazario, who chairs the anti-graft court’s fifth division, has directed prosecutors to file within five days their comment on Laurel’s motion for the Ombudsman to reverse its ruling that he is liable for graft.

Laurel’s lawyers were also given five days to file their reply.

Laurel posted P30,000 bail for his temporary liberty last April 2.

Ombudsman investigators said Laurel should be held accountable for allegedly increasing the budget of the Freedom Ring — the teflon-roofed amphitheater at the Expo Filipino in Clark Field, Pampanga — from P248 million to P1.165 billion without the benefit of public bidding.

Government prosecutors claimed that Laurel committed "evident bad faith" and "manifest partiality" when he "arbitrarily disregarded" the original Douglas/Gallagher Master Plan and gave "unwarranted benefits" to Asia Construction Development Corp. (Asiakonstrukt) when the NCC awarded the Freedom Ring contract to the company.

The Ombudsman claimed that Laurel allegedly increased the project cost "without known and available source of funding, issued to Asiakonstrukt a notice to proceed without the benefit of a contract and allowed the payment of P384 million to (the company) without the benefit of a public bidding."

Investigators of the Ombudsman’s Fact-Finding and Intelligence Bureau also pointed out in their 20-page resolution that "Laurel himself admitted that actual payment made to Asiakonstrukt was P384 million as of September 1997."

It was also "undisputed," they further claimed, "that he (Laurel) opened the bids at his law office on Dec. 18, 1996, a day earlier than the scheduled opening of bids."