House leaders: No need, no opportunity to probe Hilmarc's

Leaders of the House of Representatives are lukewarm to launching an investigation on the contractor for the controversial Makati City Hall Building II and Iloilo Convention Center despite a resolution calling for one.

 

House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said there is no need for the House to investigate Hilmarc’s Construction Corporation (HCC) since the Senate is already investigating its work on the allegedly overpriced ICC, which was financed in part by the pork barrel fund allocation of Senate President Franklin Drilon.

 

“The Senate already has a lot of info on Hilmarc’s. They are resolved to look into its other public projects. Why should we want to duplicate their work?” he said in a text message Friday.

 

Belmonte made the statement in response to Kabataan party-list Rep. Terry Ridon’s remark last Thursday that the House seems to be “dragging its feet” in investigating HCC even though the Senate has started probing its involvement in building the ICC. 

The Senate blue ribbon committee has already held a hearing on the supposed overpricing in the construction of the Iloilo Convention Center. A subpanel is also investigating the Makati City Hall Building II and other projects of the city government.

 

Ridon said he received a verbal commitment from Majority Leader and Rules Committee chairman Neptali Gonzales II last September that the House will proceed with investigating ICC but the probe has yet to push through since the resolution on which the inquiry is based, House Resolution 1466, is still with the Committee on Rules.

 

Gonzales explained that there has been a slowdown in the referral of motions for an investigation to the proper committee for action since the panel on good government and accountability tasked to investigate alleged anomalies committed by public officials or agencies is overburdened. 

 

“In fact, so many investigations have been referred to the committee but it has yet to finish a single investigation. That’s why we’d rather concentrate on legislative work than to be involved in these investigations,” he said. 

 

Even with the Senate investigating the controversy surrounding the ICC and its contractor, Gonzales said the Ombudsman will still have to conduct its own probe into the alleged anomalies if the Senate blue ribbon committee recommends the filing of charges against the government officials involved in the deal. — Xianne Arcangel/JDS, GMA News