Enrile: Senate cannot compel Villar to return P6.22B

Presidential aspirant Senator Manny Villar cannot be compelled by the Senate to return the P6.22 billion his corporations allegedly gained from the government’s C-5 road extension project, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said on Tuesday. Enrile said only the national government can initiate moves to have Villar return the money. “The Senate cannot compel him. Let the government institute an action against him," he said. He added that he will leave it up to Villar, the ninth richest Filipino in 2009 according to Forbes magazine, to decide if he will heed the committee of the whole’s recommendation. “The restitution is left to the judgment of the respondent, but there is a finding that the government has lost money because of the realignment. Let the courts compel him if there is anybody who will bring the matter to court," Enrile said. The return of the money was only one of the sanctions the Senate committee of the whole has recommended in its report on the ethics case filed against Villar. The sum, according to the 84-page report, was the amount “Villar made the Filipino people suffer" for the benefit of his corporations. Aside from demanding the return of the money, the committee also recommended that Villar be censured for engaging in improper and unethical conduct as a senator, and for damaging the integrity of the Senate.

Plunder Senator Ma. Ana Consuelo "Jamby" Madrigal, who filed the ethics complaint against Villar, said she and her lawyers are now preparing a plunder complaint against the embattled Nacionalista Party standard-bearer. She said they would file it with the Office of the Ombudsman within the month. “I will personally file the case with Ombudsman kasi napatunayan na matibay ang ebidensya (because the committee was able to prove that there is strong evidence against Villar). I believe this is a triumph for the Senate," she said at a press briefing Tuesday. Madrigal said that if Villar cannot be compelled to return the P6.22 billion, the government then could confiscate his properties. Villar’s camp has not commented on this latest issue of returning any money. But in a previous reaction to the Senate report, NP spokesperson Gilbert Remulla said, “It was all about the headlines that it would grab and the sound bites they could produce in this week of data gathering for the next nationwide survey and at the time when Senator Villar has closed the gap between him and his closest rival." Remulla was referring to Liberal Party standard bearer Sen. Benigno “Noynoy" Aquino III, whose lead over Villar in the latest Social Weather Stations preference survey had narrowed. “The conclusions reached in the report were not consistent with the transcripts of the proceeding or the evidence that were presented," Remulla added. Roads curved According to the report, which was not tackled in the Senate Tuesday due to the lack of a quorum, there is substantial evidence that Villar is a major stockholder of Adelfa Properties Inc, which owns Golden Haven Memorial Park and Azalea Real Estate Corporation (now Britanny Corporation), and was the proponent of the Las Piñas-Parañaque Link Road project and the government's C-5 road extension project. It said the road projects were made to pass through the properties of the corporations of Villar following a curved, instead of a straight, alignment. It also said that the alignment of the C-5 road extension segment of the Manila-Cavite Toll Expressway Project had to be changed just to accommodate the alignments of the Las Piñas-Parañaque and C-5 extension projects. Villar's corporations allegedly received road right-of-way compensation and still have unpaid claims. It said the properties of Villar that were acquired were given zonal valuation for different areas, thus increasing the compensation due them. The Senate report also said that Villar failed to avoid a conflict-of-interest situation by not divesting himself of his shareholdings or interest in the mentioned corporations. It added that Villar used his power to satisfy the interest of his corporations. - Amita Legaspi/KBK/HGS, GMANews.TV