A new chapter in the Binga mystery?

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Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism ( Conclusion )

Anthony Escolar, who was named a receiver of Binga Hydroelectric Plant Inc. (BHEPI), turned out to be a godson of former President Joseph Estrada and close to his mistress, Guia Gomez.

Escolar in turn named Roland Lautchang, an official of the Erap for President Movement, as a committee member. It was during this time that Estrada’s son by Gomez, Joseph Victor "JV" Ejercito, is said to have taken part in the Binga project through a company called the Asia Pacific Dredging Corp. Ejercito’s name is nowhere in the company’s papers filed at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

National Power Corp. (Napocor) and Binga employees, however, say it was widely known among them that Asia Pacific, which got a contract to dredge the Binga reservoir – the same task that was supposed to have been done years before by the CCJEC/BHEPI – was Ejercito’s.

Toward the end of the Estrada administration, the ownership dispute was finally resolved in Catalino Tan’s favor. Tan, along with the Taiwanese investors and other stockholders, signed a settlement agreement and agreed to let Tan collect fees from the Napocor.

The fees would be collected once Tan reassumes control over Binga, and then shared with all those involved.

The signing of the settlement agreement signaled the dissolution of the SEC-appointed management committee, as well as the withdrawal of all pending cases Tan and his co-investors filed against each other, including the perjury and estafa lawsuit against Tan’s lawyers Gabionza and Bautista.

Tan has also promised to pay the salary and benefit claims of some 120 former Napocor employees running the Binga plant. These employees, who had been absorbed by the CCJEC and were left hanging in the course of the corporate dispute, had put up their own company, the Itogon Power Generation Inc., which then filed its own claims before the state firm. Tan has said he will pay the employees once he gets Binga back.

A nine-man technical working group at the Napocor, however, had concluded in May 2000 that Tan was not qualified to do the job stipulated in the original contract. It had thus recommended that should the ownership dispute be settled in Tan’s favor, he should "look for new credible and experienced partners to do the job in accordance to (sic) acceptable standards."

Then this July, a government inter-agency review committee that studies 35 contracts entered into by the Napocor with IPPs declared the Binga deal as among the most onerous, having legal, technical and financial infirmities. The committee noted that among the problems at Binga were BHEPI’s "defective meters" that led to overstated fees, as well as Napocor’s claims of damages amounting to $4.402 million because of the delay in the operation of the plant and the non-completion of the rehabilitation work at the reservoir.

Once more though, Tan’s sterling connections have enabled him to hurdle such obstacles and make a comeback at Binga. Joey Rufino said Tan now has "an American partner to join him. I don’t know the name of the company but these guys are well-connected in Washington."