EDITORIAL : THE DAILY TRIBUNE, THE PHILIPPINES

 

 

Probe needed

EDITORIAL

07/05/2011

A judicial investigative body should really look into the report of an alleged extortion attempt by a Pasay City Regional Trial Court (RTC) that handled and decided on the just compensation awarded to the Philippine International Airport Terminal Co. (Piatco) where it was found that the Supreme Court (SC)--ordered technical evaluation commission’s Final Report’s recommendation to the court on just compensation appeared to have been ignored by the hearing judge as the amount the judge awarded Piatco was nowhere near the amount the three-man commission had recommended to the judge.

From the commission’s signed Final Report that was submitted to the judge, which was obtained by the Tribune, there was no such amount of $176 million that was recommended but awarded anyway by the judge to the consortium. In fact, this amount was the earlier reported amount that the Solicitor-General had announced it was willing to pay Piatco as reimbursement for the government’s expropriation of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport 3 (NAIA-3).

The judge’s decision also rejected the commission’s recommendation for the government to pay Piatco a 12 percent interest for the past seven years and until full payment is made, which is already odd in itself as interest payments are usual.

It really bears asking why the RTC court completely ignored the commission’s evaluation report, which was conducted by a team of experts, a team agreed upon by both the plaintiff and the defendant. The study was based on the technical aspect of the NAIA-3 project to arrive at the amount of just compensation due Piatco.

It also bears asking where the RTC judge got the just compensation figure that hewed too closely to the amount that the Aquino government insisted on paying Piatco, since he refused to follow that which the court ordered commission had recommended, after months of study and with the independent outputs of the technical experts on the cost of the project to arrive at the just compensation figure.

And how else can a judge come up with a decision awarding Piatco an amount that appears to have no basis, since there was no other team of experts that the judge had hired on his own, to counter that which the experts the SC-ordered commission relied on to obtain the just compensation that government has to reimburse Piatco?

This, the judge has to explain, as even he cannot claim to be competent in appraise the project, enough to go against that which a legitimate commission, with experts checking out all costs, had come up with. the award the judge ruled was, to put it bluntly, ridiculous and not substantiated.

Tribune sources said that Piatco has not even been given a copy of the commission’s Final Report to this day, which is also odd.

What is being forgotten in all this is the fact that, apart from foreign investors shying away from big ticket items in the country due to the Aquino government’s penchant of not honoring contracts that it merely suspects are anomalous as these have been approved by the previous administration, there is now that added fear that even when government expropriates a project, investors can never be assured that they would be awarded an acceptable just compensation package that has basis, and not one that is whimsically decided on by a judge who is alleged to have tried to extort a huge sum in exchange for a favorable decision on just compensation for Piatco, even allegedly threating to award an amount that the government wants, as he may still be promoted to justice of the appellate court.

If this was done to Piatco on the just compensation case, what guarantee does any other investor whose project may be expropriated by the government that he would be given a fair shake by the government and by the courts?

If the Aquino government does not know it yet, direct foreign investments in this country has declined dangerously, which decline can be traced to the voiding of the contract, followed by the expropriation of NAIA-3 without paying just compensation, and only paying Piatco a downpayment of P3 billion after a long time while all the while operating the airport facility.

Worse, it had even taken over the airport terminal exercising ownership rights, which has been banned by the high court.

The Aquino government has even made things worse, as it also canceled and questions other contracts with foreign investors, such as the Belgian contract for the dredging of Laguna Lake and the Ro-Ro project of a French firm, even as the Aquino administration keeps on talking about its Public-Private Partnership program that will bring in the big ticket investors.

That’s questionable claim, since at least three foreign governments Noynoy is at odds with.