Senator Nancy Binay. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines–For Sen. Nancy Binay, it’s a half-baked issue, but former Makati officials insist that she supplied the cakes that Makati City gave to senior citizens for their birthdays when she worked at City Hall.
Mario Hechanova, former Makati General Services Department head, is the second former city official to claim that it was the neophyte senator who had provided the cakes that the city gave to elderly Makati residents.
Hechanova appeared at the hearing of the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee looking into the alleged overprice of the Makati City Hall Building II.
Earlier, former Makati Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado said he believed that Senator Binay was involved in supplying the cakes, though he said she did not bake these herself. Mercado alleged that everybody knew it was she who was behind the cakes.
Binay has repeatedly denied that she supplied the cakes, and on Thursday decried Hechanova’s “lies.”
Hechanova linked Binay to the cake issue in the course of answering a question during a Senate hearing on whether then Mayor Jejomar Binay had personally given him any instructions related to a transaction.
Mayor’s follow up
Hechanova said the mayor had once called him to his office to follow up the payment for “Nancy’s cakes.”
“One time, he called me and he told me in his office, ‘Mario, what happened to the payment for the cakes of Nancy?” he recalled.
P1.48M for March alone
He said the mayor even scolded him because the payment for the cakes was delayed.
Based on documents obtained by the Inquirer, 4,825 birthday cakes were prepared for senior citizens for the month of March 2014. At P306.75 each, the cakes cost the city government P1,480,576.
The average annual budget for the birthday cakes, according to the same documents, is P18 million.
No recipients’ signatures
According to Hechanova, the payment had been delayed because the list of cake recipients came from the Department of Social Welfare and Development, and some of the names had no corresponding signatures.
Since he would be asked to account for these by the accounting department, he did not process the payment.
“So the payment for the cakes sat in my office,” he added.
Asked if he thought the cakes were the business of Nancy, Hechanova said he believed so.
“I think that is the case, because what was followed up was the payment,” he said.
He also answered in the affirmative when asked if then Mayor Binay himself followed up the cake payments when these were delayed.
In a statement Thursday, Nancy said those claiming she had been the cake supplier should present proof.
“Umaapaw ang kasinungalingan ni Mario Hechanova (Mario Hechanova is overflowing with lies),” she said.
Malicious claim
“I deny again in the strongest terms possible and condemn the malicious claim of Engineer Hechanova,” she said. “I did not, again, I did not benefit from the cakes given to senior citizens of Makati.”
It was easy to invent stories or tell lies when one had a “coach and protector,” she said.
She once again pointed out that she did not own a bakeshop and did not know how to bake.
“The family members of incumbent officials are prohibited from transacting with City Hall because of conflict of interests,” she further said.
She said the Senate hearing had seen a “pattern of lies,” since Renato Bondal, who filed the plunder case against her father and brother over the parking building, first claimed that these cakes cost P1,000 each. Bondal later admitted that the price he mentioned was just a guess.
The eight-inch diameter cakes were round chiffon with mocca or butter flavor. Each cake had a candle.
In an ambush interview, the senator said she was thinking of actually opening a bakeshop.
She told reporters that a friend from Bacolod City owned a popular bakeshop known for its chocolate cake and ensaymada, and she convinced this friend to open up a branch in Metro Manila.
“This could be our joint venture,” the senator said.
‘Next baby’
She said she could not say when this would push through, but added that this would be her “next baby.”
Because she does not know how to bake, she is tapping her friend’s expertise, the senator said.
Nancy said the hearing’s participants kept on referring to the building in question as a parking building, when it also housed offices.
“And when the resource persons’ testimony would not fit into their script, they would bully them,” she added.
Nancy also said her fellow senators should show the same enthusiasm in the hearing when it came to scrutinizing the national budget and the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).
“I wish they had been as enthusiastic during the hearing on the DAP, but it’s sad that during that time, one of my colleagues lawyered for (Budget Secretary Florencio) Abad in the same manner that he lawyered for my family’s political rivals,” she said.–With a report from Nancy C. Carvajal
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