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AUNOR DENIES INVOLVEMENT IN P305-M CASE

Quezon City, March 24, 2000 - Jolina Magdangal will be missed by her local fans when she leaves the Movie actress Nora Aunor denied yesterday having used her closeness to President Estrada to help Columbian Motors Corp. win a contract to supply 105 fire trucks worth P305 million, in a hearing held by the Senate Blue Ribbon committee.

The Chief Executive has ordered rebidding of the contract to erase suspicions that persons close to him have the edge in getting juicy government contracts.

While senators, particularly Sen. Robert Barbers, appeared to give the actress-singer a clean bill of health, Yolanda Ramos, chief operating officer of Pilipinas Daeyang Heavy Industrial, Inc., which lost in the bid, testified that movie actor Paquito Diaz was very active in working for the awarding of the contract to the company CMC.

Ms. Ramos testified that she and Diaz even had lunch and had gone to the office of Mike Velarde, head of the charismatic El Shaddai, for help in resolving the issue.

She also cleared Ms. Aunor of having resorted to influence peddling on the contract, stating that she has no knowledge or proof to back reports that the actress resorted to influence peddling.

Appearing before the Senate Blue Ribbon committee chaired by Sen. Aquilino Q. Pimentel Jr., Ms. Aunor first asked permission to talk in Tagalog before answering Pimentel's queries.

"Wala akong kinalaman (I have no knowledge)," Aunor replied to a Pimentel query whether she had dealings with CMC, specifically on the fire truck supply contract.

She categorically denied having sponsored the deal by talking to the President, adding that she had been sworn to an agreement with movie actor Ronnie Poe never to ask favors from, or do anything to hurt, the President for whom she campaigned in the May 1998 presidential elections.

Replying to a query by Senate Minority Leader Teofisto Guingona on whether people would go to her for help since she is close to the

President, Ms. Aunor admitted that people would mill around her but never asked for favors. She said that no one approached her on the fire truck deal.

Pimentel could not help but express his sentiment that he has been a fan of Ms. Aunor, particularly when she sang "Pearly Shells" decades ago.

Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno later read a four-page letter to the Pimentel committee stating that he; Eduardo Opida, chairman of the Inter-Agency Bids and Awards Committee (IABAC), and Estanislao C. Granados Jr., of the DBM and ex-officio member of IABAC, "have no first-hand knowledge of any specific influence-peddling activities of Ms. Nora Aunor and Mr. Paquito Diaz."

After Barbers stated that she believed in what Ms. Aunor had said and not one of the three other senators - Juan Ponce Enrile, Pimentel, and Guingona - made a contradictory statement, Pimentel told the movie actress she could leave.

The dimunitive entertainment personality was clad in blue jeans and long sleeves. She wore brown boots.

Pimentel, however, told Ms. Aunor to tell Diaz to appear in the next committee hearing or his committee would be forced to issue an arrest order.

He, likewise, asked the committee lawyers to summon Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora and Jose Ch. Alvarez, CMC president.

Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno labelled as "fabricated" a published "government memorandum" highlighting the name of Ms. Aunor and Diaz as sponsors of the fire trucks.

Diokno said he has not talked to Ms. Aunor on the fire truck bidding and that he has not seen any official document stating that Ms. Aunor and Diaz are sponsors of the multi-million-peso contract.

Diokno and Granados said there was no change in the specification to fit CMC's bid before the actual two-envelope bidding process started.

He insisted that while Pilipinas Daeyang submitted the lowest bid price, "award was recommended pursuant to bid rules in favor of CMC

whose bid was determined to be the lowest evaluated cost per unit to the government."

He also said that the "split award" was a Presidential Management Service (PMS) recommendation to which the IABAC agreed, recognizing the PMS's superior authority of review.

Granados testified that because the Estrada administration has adopted bid systems proposed by the World Bank, the US Agency for International Development, and Canada's CIDA, the bid price of Ms. Ramos for 18 trucks last December was $11,000 cheaper than her bid price two years ago.

Although Pilipinas Daeyang offered P2.5 million per fire truck as against CMC's P2.735 million per truck, Pilipinas Daeyang lost because of five other criteria used by the bid committee in determing the "lowest evaluated cost per unit," Diokno explained.

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