Senate Blue Ribbon sub-committee hearing. INQUIRER PHOTO/RAFFY LERMA
With its long-running inquiry into corruption allegations against Vice President Jejomar Binay almost at its tailend, the Senate blue ribbon committee will tackle Monday a recommendation to cite in contempt 19 of his key allies and business associates for snubbing its hearings.
The committee chaired by Sen. Teofisto Guingona III is set to deliberate at 1 p.m. on the list of persons who had unduly refused to appear before its subcommittee, headed by Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III and with Senators Antonio Trillanes IV and Alan Peter Cayetano as members.
The 19 include longtime Binay aides Gerry Limlingan and Eduviges Baloloy, engineers Line de la Peña and Mario Badillo, Bernadette Portallano, Vissia Marie Aldon, Danilo Villas, Aida Alcantara, Tomas Lopez, Hirene Lopez, Irene Chong, Imee Chong, Kim Tun Chong, Iris Chong, Erlinda Chong, Kimsfer Chong, Antonio Tiu, Anne Lorraine Buencamino-Tiu and James Tiu.
Pimentel said in an interview over dzBB the Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation had failed to track down Limlingan and Baloloy, who had joint bank accounts with Binay, according to the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC).
“The hearings are possibly about to end, they will get away with it,” he said of the 19 resource persons, underscoring the importance of enforcing the orders and processes of the Senate.
Pimentel said businessman Antonio Tiu, who was alleged to be a dummy for the Vice President for a vast estate in Rosario, Batangas province, and who rebutted the charge in earlier hearings he attended, failed to appear in subsequent proceedings despite summons.
He said University of Makati president Tomas Lopez attended the last hearing of the subcommittee on the alleged questionable joint venture between the university and Systems Technology Inc. but skipped earlier sessions on Binay’s alleged ownership of the estate in Batangas.
Pimentel said Lopez’s appearance in the last hearing could be regarded as a “mitigating circumstance.”
He said his panel planned to release this week a partial report on the alleged overpricing of the Makati City Hall Building II and Makati Science Building.
Pimentel said he did not think the subcommittee should reopen its inquiry into the allegation that the Binays own the company that supplied birthday cakes to Makati’s senior residents.
He said the inquiry should focus on the alleged questionable infrastructure transactions and leave the cake issue to the Office of the Ombudsman and the Commission on Audit to investigate.
“I am not saying there is or there is no anomaly here but this is a fact-finding thing and it would be difficult to let the Senate do this. I would prefer just to look into infrastructure deals,” Pimentel said.
This was also the same case with the AMLC report of Binay owning individual and joint bank accounts with his close aides that were deemed associated with illegal activity.
Reacting to Pimentel’s statement not to take up the cake issue, Sen. Nancy Binay said the reason could be that the person who made the accusation, Renato Bondal, lied about the price of the cake. Bondal claimed the cake cost P1,000 but the price was found to be way below that.
Senator Binay expressed the belief that Limlingan and Baloloy would appear in due time at the proper investigative body.
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