3,000 Makati residents slam 'politically-motivated' Senate probe

MANILA, Philippines —  Some 3,000 residents of various Makati City barangays trooped to the grounds of the Makati City Hall yesterday morning and staged a rally to protest the ongoing Senate investigations into the alleged overpricing of the construction of the Makati City Hall Building 2.

The rally coincided with the supposed ocular inspection of the building by members of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee. Of the 17 members of the committee, only Senators Aquilino Pimentel III and Antonio Trillanes IV made it to the actual inspection with Senator Alan Peter Cayetano absent.

While the inspection was being conducted, the protesters, mostly barangay leaders, senior citizens and members of the City Council took turns in expressing their support for Vice President Jejomar Binay and his son, Makati Mayor Jejomar Erwin Binay over what they call a "poltically-motivated" invetigation.

Vice President Binay and Mayor Binay are facing a plunder complaint filed by former Barangay Palanan chairman Renato Bondal before the Office of the Ombudsman.

The protesters carried with them placards written with "Walang Iwanan!", "Kay Binay, Gumanda ang Buhay!" and "Tigilan na ang Pagsisinungaling at Panghuhula!"

The demonstrators also vowed to stand by the Vice President and his family despite attempts to bring them down, and to support his bid for the presidency in the 2016 elections.

Before the plunder complaint was filed, Mayor Binay exposed a plan by opponents to have him and the rest of the City Council suspended, except for the Vice Mayor who is a member of the Liberal Party, to pave the way for the latter’s designation as acting mayor and non-elective persons to take over the City Council.

This, he said, will be "subverting the will of the people of Makati."

Binay also condemned the use of the Senate hearing as a platform to malign his father, who is currently the frontrunner among presidential aspirants in 2016.

"This is no different from the 2006 suspension of my father and the entire City Council ordered by the Arroyo regime to get back at my father for being the leader of the opposition," he said.

Appearing before the Senate hearing, Mayor Binay also earlier said that contrary to the claims of their political 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 city hall building 2 was overpriced.

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.