MANILA, Philippines — Are the issues hounding the New Senate Building (NSB) only a deliberate attempt to destroy the upper chamber?
Sen. Nancy Binay couldn’t help but wonder if some people want to destroy the Senate.
She floated her question in an ambush interview following a heated discussion with Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano during the Senate hearing on the supposedly ballooning cost of the upper chamber’s new home in Taguig.
Binay used to head the Senate’s panel on accounts, which was tasked with overseeing the Senate’s budget, expenses, audit, and other fiscal activities. She was replaced by Cayetano after the seismic shakeup on May 20.
“I think the mere fact na ipinutok nila ‘yung amount e — ‘di ko alam kung ang intensyon talaga at the end of the day e bahagi rin ng intensyon nila ay sirain ang institusyon,” Binay told reporters.
(I think the mere fact that they revealed this amount — I don’t know if their real intention at the end of the day, or at least a part of their intention is to destroy the institution.)
Cayetano, during his panel’s Wednesday hearing, insisted that NSB’s cost would balloon to a whopping P23 billion, but data from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) showed that NSB’s estimated cost is only at around P21 billion.
“Ginawa niya pa akong Marites, pero sino kaya ‘yung nagmamarites sa aming dalawa. Hindi ba ang linaw linaw?” said Binay.
(He even labelled me as Marites, but between us, who is a Marites? Isn’t it so clear?)
Marites is a term in the Philippines used to describe gossipmongers.
“Pare-pareho naman tayong marunong magbasa, may nakita na ba kayo doon sa report ng DPWH na 23? ‘Di ba ang layo ng 21 sa 23? So, obvious kung sino ‘yung mali mali ang sinasabi doon sa hearing kanina,” Binay emphasized.
(We all know how to read; did you see in DPWH’s report that the cost is at 23? Isn’t 21 very different from 23? So it’s obvious who keeps saying the wrong information during the hearing earlier.)
To recall, the issues surrounding the NSB erupted after Senate President Chiz Escudero ordered a review of the building’s cost.
This was after he was informed by Cayetano about an apparent “dramatic increase” in the building’s construction cost from an initial budget of P8 billion to a projected P23.3 billion.
Binay, on the other hand, earlier admitted to thinking that Cayetano was only using the NSB as an issue to fuel the Makati-Taguig feud, just like what happened in 2015.
READ: Binay: New Senate building issue being used to fuel Makati-Taguig feud
“It reminds me of 2015. This is a replay of the 24 senate hearings in 2015,” said Binay.
“Tao lang din naman tayo and parang ‘yung sugat na akala ko nag-hilom na parang binuksan ulit dahil naaalala ko ‘yung ginawa sa pamilya ko, kung paano nila sinira ‘yung pangalan namin,” she added later on.
(We’re only human and I think the wounds I thought had healed have reopened because I remembered what they did to my family and how they destroyed our name.)
Binay did not categorically state what incident in 2015 was similar to that of NSB, but Cayetano was among the central figures in the chamber’s probe of the Makati City Hall Parking Building in 2015.