The officials of the supplier of the 21 units of refurbished
helicopters for the Philippine Air Force (PAF) modernization and whistleblower
Rhodora Alvarez faced off on Tuesday in the fourth Senate inquiry into the
alleged anomalous Php1.2-billion transaction.
Robert Rice Jr., president of the US-based Rice Aircraft
Services, Inc. (RASI), accused Alvarez of trying to extort money from them.
”She demanded for 15 percent commission after the awarding
of the contract and once we denied her request because 15 percent was too much,
she begins to back off and then insisted that she wanted 3 percent for
commission,” Rice told the Senate blue ribbon panel chaired by Sen. Teofisto
Guingona Jr.
Rice, who was seated beside Alvarez, clarified that even the
three percent commission was not given to Alvarez because the former Bureau of
Internal Revenue (BIR) employee has an accounted 210,689 dollars for the
supposed payment of salaries of RASI’s Filipino crew in the Philippines
The RASI officials claimed when they refused to pay Alvarez,
she allegedly revoked the performance bonds for the contract which they paid
for 121,460 dollars and another for 110,500 dollars after it expired.
Rice also blamed the delay in the delivery of the
helicopters to Alvarez’s threats to file tax evasion charges against the RASI’s
local crew.
In his Powerpoint presentation, Rice showed photos taken
from her Facebook account showing Alvarez handing out money.
“This is Christmas time and she’s handing out money. She has
two brand new vehicles, a brand new van and a brand new car in addition to the
many vacations she’s taking as well. She brought her family to Hong Kong ’s Disney land,” Rice claimed.
Rice accused Alvarez of using fabricated statement, adding
“she made a lot of allegations and assumptions based on her lack of knowledge.”
Alvarez categorically denied Rice’s accusation that she
tried to extort money from RASI, claiming she even mortgaged her condominium
unit just to pay in advance the salary of the RASI’s Filipino crew in the Philippines
”I was never an extortionist. My purpose of coming out is
for the country because I don’t want our soldiers to be put in danger by flying
helicopters which are not safe,” Alvarez said.
Meanwhile, Guingona described the exchange of accusations by
Rice and Alvarez as secondary, insisting the main purpose of the Senate inquiry
is to find out if the procurement laws have been violated in the acquisition of
the UH-1D choppers from RASI.
”Regardless of the motives of these people, what important
is whether the law has been violated, whether the specifications have been
tailor-fitted to favor one supplier, whether they receive kickbacks and what we
should be done to avoid this in the future,” Guingona said.
Guingona asked the Department of National Defense (DND) to
prepare answer to Alvarez’s allegations that the Php1.2 billion contract for
the purchase of the 21 helicopters was tailor-fitted to favor RASI which has
already been disqualified three times in the previous biddings.
Guingona also asked to submit explanation on what he
described as alarming data from DND which shows that only two percent or 650
out of 35,000 contracts of the DND have been approved after meeting required
documents in 2013.
”This is very alarming figures. It’s certainly raises some
questions which I hope you can answer in the coming days,” Guingona said.
Manalo explained that the contracts were mostly ‘small one’
by the field commanders of the AFP.
http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=780160
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