MANILA – Ten of the 17 members of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee have signed the draft partial report of the subcommittee which recommended the filing of plunder charges against Vice President Jejomar Binay and other personalities involved in the alleged overpriced Makati City buildings.
The last six senators who signed the committee report on Monday were Senators Francis Escudero, Paolo Benigno Aquino IV, Sergio Osmena III, Miriam Defensor Santiago, Pia Cayetano, and Teofisto Guingona III.
Earlier, Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano and Senators Antonio Trillanes IV, Grace Poe and Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III signed the report drafted by Pimentel.
Pimentel chaired the Senate Blue Ribbon subcommittee which conducted over 20 hearings before coming out with a partial report which will be submitted to the plenary.
Trillanes initiated the Senate inquiry through Senate Resolution No. 826 directing the Blue Ribbon committee to investigate, in-aid-of legislation, the alleged PhP1.601 billion overpricing of the 11-storey Makati City parking building and related anomalies.
Escudero, who supported Binay in the 2010 presidential elections, explained that he signed the report based on the evidence which is sufficient to justify the recommendation to file the plunder cases, and to afford the named persons the opportunity to answer the allegations against them at the proper forum.
”It will give them opportunity to answer the allegations against them in their chosen forum, the courts, since they refused to participate in the Senate and have been saying that ‘they will answer in the proper forum,” Escudero said in a text message.
“I am signing the Blue Ribbon committee report because the findings that the Makati City Hall II Parking Building was overpriced and that its surrounding bidding process was irregular were largely unrefuted and unanswered,” Aquino said in a statement.
Aquino said the findings warrant the appropriate government agencies, particularly the Ombudsman, to investigate and file the corresponding charges.
Osmeña said he finds the findings of the subcommittee report “very convincing.”
According to the draft partial report, the Makati City Hall III parking building is clearly overpriced by at least PhP1.39 billion.
”The subcommittee believes that its investigation on the alleged overprice in the construction of the Makati City Hall parking building has revealed the commission of a crime and that crime is plunder,” the report stated.
”In the opinion of the subcommittee, all the elements of the crime of plunder have been clearly alleged and substantiated through the unequivocal and straightforward asserts, under oath, of the witnesses..”, it added.
Aside from the Vice President, the subcommittee recommended that the anti-graft courts should also investigate and ultimately file plunder cases against Makati City Mayor Jejomar Erwin Binay Jr. and other Makati City officials.
They are Marjorie de Veyra, Lorenza P. Amores, Gerardo K. San Gabriel, Pio Kenneth Dasal, and Ulysses Orienza.
The subcommittee also believed that Hilmarc’s Construction Corp. chairman Efren Canlas, president Roberto Henson, Orlando Mateo, Gerry Limlingan and Eduviges ‘Ebeng’ Baloloy conspired with the Makati City officials.
The subpanel also gave 22 recommendations, including suggestions for the Commission on Audit and other government agencies like Security and Exchange Commission, to further investigate the Makati City anomalies.