ANGELES CITY, Philippines – Architect Felino Palafox Jr. said yesterday the libel case filed against him by the bids and awards committee of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) was mere harassment.
In a phone interview with The STAR, Palafox said that after designing skyscrapers for the world’s biggest capital cities, he is prepared to design more livable jails for Filipinos once he is arrested and jailed.
Palafox, founder and managing partner of Palafox Associates, said he has donated to the Christ the King Seminary of the Societas Verbi Divini (SVD) where he was once a seminarian, the P10,000 bail he expected to be imposed on him by the Olongapo City court for his temporary liberty.
“That was where I learned the values of honesty, integrity, prayer, love of God, country and planet earth,” he said.
The court is slated to issue a warrant of arrest against him anytime.
Palafox decried the case as “harassment,” as he questioned the prosecutors’ “speed and agility” in deciding his libel case.
“I have practiced my profession in 54 countries where I have become respected. It is a lament that I am being persecuted in my very own country in the struggle for truth,” said Palafox, a ranking officer of the American Chamber of Commerce, American Planning Organization and Makati Business Club.
“Now I am willing to sacrifice my career, person and even my life,” he said, citing the death threats he had received after he made public his allegations that a SBMA official, who he has not named so far, had demanded grease money for a $1-billion casino project at the Subic Bay Freeport.
Olongapo City prosecutors Melanie Fay Tadili Benarez have found probable cause to cite Palafox for libel over the architect’s claim that a member of the SBMA’s bids and awards committee had demanded from him 18 percent of the total project cost of the Subic Bay Freeport Comprehensive Master Plan Project for his company to be included in the shortlist of bidders for Subic projects, including the $1-billion casino.
In the first place, he said he was against the casino project to save 366 trees in the forested project site.
The libel case was filed by members of the SBMA bids and awards committee, including lawyers Ferdinand Hernandez, Ramon Agregado, Ruel John Kabigting and Von Rodriguez and engineers Marcelino Sanqin and Amethya Koval who said that Palafox’s allegations subjected them to “public ridicule and contempt.”