Where are the relevant laws? FVR asks Senate

While former President Fidel Ramos expressed willingness to attend another Senate probe into the Smokey Mountain Development and Reclamation Project, he said the chamber has yet to come out with relevant legislation as a result of the conduct of previous inquiries on the SMDRP issue.

"We assumed that all of them were ‘in aid of legislation,’ but to this date, we are still waiting for any relevant legislation, particularly on land use, reclamation and joint ventures with government," Ramos told reporters yesterday in a press conference at the Dignitaries Lounge of the NAIA Terminal I before he boarded a plane en route to Macau and then Zhuhai in Guangdong province in China.

Ramos will lead a 70-member Philippine trade delegation to China that will promote trade and investments.

The Senate committee on labor had slated a hearing on Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA)’s alleged questionable investment of its funds on the SMDRP in the coming days.

Ramos stressed he was ready to testify again to help the Senate in its task of "investigation in aid of its primary task of legislation," but he urged the Senate to craft the necessary laws to show that something fruitful came out of the inquiries.

"Although I haven’t been invited or subpoenaed yet, I understand the investigation is similar to what we already went through in September 2004 where I appeared and recommended that certain legislation be undertaken by Congress," Ramos said.

He said the Senate has already conducted three inquiries on the SMDR project. The first one was conducted in February 1996 by the Senate committees on social justice and housing then chaired by Senators Juan Flavier and Gregorio Honasan, followed by a second inquiry in January 2001 by the House committee on good government chaired by Rep. Edgar Lara. The third inquiry was held in September 2004.

"During the September 2004 investigation, the financial arrangements to move the Smokey Mountain project were also examined very thoroughly by the Blue Ribbon Committee. I made it very clear having the institutional memory that the Smokey Mountain project was first approved during the Aquino administration and continues up to now in the Arroyo administration. So therefore, there are four administrations involved, the Aquino, the Ramos, the Estrada and the incumbent Arroyo government," Ramos said.

Ramos said the OWWA’s investment in the SMDRP was made by the OWWA’s board of trustees. He said he had already mentioned this during the September 2004 Senate inquiry into the project.

He said that all the funds raised through the Smokey Mountain Project Participation Certificates (SMPPC) during his term were received and accounted for by the Philippine National Bank (PNB) as trustee which managed the funds and made sure they were utilized for the project’s development.

Ramos stressed that all investments in the SMPPC made by both private and public sector investors including OWWA, were solicited by commercial banks such as the PNB, Allied Bank, and the Al Amanah Bank and were made because of the perceived viability and merits of the investment. — Rainier Allan Ronda