SENATE probers Monday moved to conduct further hearings into alleged irregularities surrounding the use of public money, including P500 million in overseas workers welfare funds, for the Smokey Mountain reclamation project awarded to businessman Reghis Romero during the Ramos administration.
Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, chairman of the Labor committee investigating alleged misuse of contributions to the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), said the hearings into the so-called Smokey Mountain reclamation scam will be reconvened next week.
“Several senators still want to ask questions about the project,” Estrada said before adjourning Monday’s inquiry. At the hearing, Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, a member of the panel, confirmed that “taxpayers lost a lot of money in this deal” through the Home Guarantee Corp, a government financial institution that insured investors in the project carried out by Romero’s R2 Builders.
At the hearing, however, former Solicitor General Frank Chavez claimed that Romero’s company, and its government partner, the National Housing Authority, were engaged in illegal acts in selling reclaimed land to reimburse investors like OWWA, and could be held liable for this.
“They have no congressional authority to sell the reclaimed land at Smokey Mountain as required by law,” Chavez told Estrada’s committee. “The law is the law; it may be exceedingly harsh, but it is the law,” he said, adding that the government must get back the property now under control of Romero’s company.
Chavez accused Romero of “gross deception,” citing the developer’s “fantastic tale of wonderland” at the former city dumpsite located at the Tondo foreshore area in Manila. Romero said his company built and turned over to the government at least 21 buildings comprising the housing component of the reclamation project.
But Biazon said this is precisely what they would look into and verify Romero’s claim at the next hearing. “I am asking to expand the inquiry particularly on the housing component,” Biazon told reporters, adding that while the OWWA may not have lost its investment and was just awaiting earnings on interests on its P500 million loan to the Smokey Mountain reclamation project, it is the Home Guarantee Corp. that absorbed the loss. “And HGC being a government firm means it is the taxpayers losing money here,” he added.---B. Fernandez
Business Mirror
September 6,2006
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