World Bank to brief RP government on Tuesday

MANILA, Philippines - The World Bank has set on Feb. 24 its promised briefing for government officials on alleged road project anomalies, but it hopes to focus on how it investigated the collusion among contractors and officials and not on the details of its findings implicating First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo.

In a letter to Finance Secretary Margarito Teves, World Bank country director Bert Hofman said “we are prepared to discuss the process, role and nature of INT (Integrity Vice Presidency) investigations as well as the World Bank’s sanction process.”

But he said that with the INT being an “independent” body, “we will not be in a position to talk about the content or any other detailed information on any case in the Philippines.”

Hofman said the bank’s communication officer David Theis Sr. and regional chief counsel Anthony Thoft would attend the briefing.

Theis was INT’s main spokesperson for three years until he was moved to another unit of the World Bank.

It was Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, chair of the Senate committee on economic affairs, who asked Teves to ask the World Bank to schedule the briefing that it promised.

Earlier, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Santiago moved to have Hofman subpoenaed for refusing to furnish the Senate with documents on its report that resulted in the debarment of Filipino and foreign contractors for alleged “collusive practices” and bid rigging for the National Roads and Improvement Management Program Phase 1 or NRIMP-1.

Hofman had agreed to include the senators in a technical briefing the Bank would conduct, even as he reiterated that the Bank had furnished the Department of Finance and the Office of the Ombudsman the documents and reports they would need to pursue an investigation into the issue.

The senators had also agreed to transfer the “criminal aspect” of the case to the Blue Ribbon committee for further investigation from Santiago’s committee on economic affairs, which would now be limited to the “economic aspect” or on how corruption has been affecting vital projects.

Santiago furnished the media with Hofman’s letter and announced that she was again taking a leave of absence.

“I’ll stop being a workaholic and start to live like a bum, and maybe I’ll work on my sex appeal,” she said.

“A team of four or five doctors are working on me, and one of them said I must inhibit myself from political work of any kind because it depletes my oxygen, because I’m a type of person who has (an) adrenaline surge every time I have too much work,” Santiago said.