PUBLISHED ON SEP

28, 2007 | 0 comments |

NAIA III fiasco: Meet the cast of

characters

By ROEL LANDINGIN

ALFREDO LIONGSON
The PR consultant
Alfredo Liongson was the highly paid consultant that Piatco and Fraport turned to in the middle of
2001 to help them secure a number of government agreements for the Naia 3 project. The two
companies needed government approvals to satisfy close to 80 conditions set by a group of
international lenders for releasing a $44-million loan.
A former marketing executive of United Laboratories Inc., the Philippines biggest pharmaceutical
company, Liongson received a monthly retainer of $200,000 and close to $2 million in variable fees
for helping secure at least nine approvals or agreements from the DOTC and other government
agencies.
The biggest fee of $600,000 was to be paid after the Department of Transport and Communications
(DOTC) approved Piatcos designation of the PAGS Terminals Inc. (PTI) as operator of the new
passenger terminal. Another $200,000 was to be paid to Liongson after the DOTC and Manila
International Airport Authority (MIAA) executed a third supplement to the concession agreement.
The unusually big paymentsSen. Sergio Osmea quipped Liongson was getting more than the
annual salaries of all top officials of the countrys executive, legislative, and judicial departments
combinedhave given rise to suspicions that the monies actually went to government officials who
helped facilitate the approvals.
For his role in securing government approvals, he was indicted by the Office of Ombudsman along
with former DOTC officials and Piatco and Fraport executives for violation of the anti-graft and corrupt
practices act. The complaint was dismissed by the Sandiganbayan for lack of probable cause but the
case has been appealed to the Supreme Court.
Liongson disappeared from public view when copies of his lucrative consultancy contract with Piatco
became public. The Sandiganbayan issued a warrant for his arrest after he failed to appear before
the court to answer the Ombudsmans charges and post bail.
Cheng Yong, who brought him in, defended Liongson, saying the former Unilab vice president was a
highly effective PR person who was tasked to counter the negative publicity on Piatco and the Naia 3
project. However, Cheng could not come up with a detailed list of news articles, advertisements, and
radio and TV plugs that Liongson may have helped place to boost Piatcos image.
Asked where Liongson possibly was, Cheng said in 2002 he may have been out of the country and
enjoying his retirement. Oddly, the 1978 MBA graduate of the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
who was described as a specialist in counteracting adverse publicity was helpless when it came to
the bad press about him.

PANTALEON ALVAREZ
Conflict of interest
A lawyer from Davao, Pantaleon Alvarez has been a bureaucrat, lawmaker, and Cabinet member. But,
wittingly or not, in one form or another, the Naia 3 project loomed large in whatever work he was
doing.
In 1996, he was assistant general manager at the MIAA. Two years later, he ran and won as a
member of Congress representing Davao under Renato de Villas Reporma Party. He became vice
chairman of the House of Representatives committee on transportation and communication. When
Gloria Arroyo became president in January 2001 following Joseph Estradas ouster, she appointed

Alvarez DOTC secretary.

At the MIAA, he headed the technical committee and was member of the bidding committee that
awarded the build-operate-transfer (BOT) contract to build Naia 3 to Piatco. As chairman of the House
committee on transport and communication, he took part in an investigation into the awarding of the
contract and helped write a report upholding the legality of the deal. It was during his time as DOTC
secretary that the department signed a third supplement to the concession agreement with Piatco in
June 2001.
For his role as technical committee head and member of the bidding committee that awarded the
BOT contract to Piatco, Alvarez and other DOTC and MIAA officials were indicted for violating the anticorrupt practices act in a case that is still being tried by the Sandiganbayan.
Alvarez is accused of having interests in a small construction company, Wintrack Builders, that Piatco
engaged in the middle of 2000 to excavate and remove subterranean structures in the future site of
the terminal. This was the same time when Alvarez was vice chairman of the House committee on
transportation and communication that was investigating the Naia 3 deals. Alvarezs name does not
appear as a shareholder, but his wife is one of the incorporators and accounted for a third of the
initial capital.
Former Wintrack engineers allege that Alvarez does not only own the construction company but also
that he took an active role in running it. Worse, they allege that Wintrack artificially inflated its
excavation works to bloat its financial claims on Piatco and ultimately on the government. Piatco
deducted its costs for the excavation works from its annual payments to the government.
MASO, a group of airport service operators who feared losing their losing concessions in Naia 1 and 2
with the opening of Terminal 3, has filed a complaint of plunder against him before the Office of the
Ombudsman but the agencys investigators are have not finished their probe.
One of the things that keeps Alvarez occupied these days is fighting the Anti-Money Laundering
Councils efforts to pry open his bank accounts.
Object1

Object2

Object 3

GLORIA TAN CLIMACO

She uncovered fraud
As President Gloria Arroyos adviser on flagship projects, Gloria Tan Climaco initially set out to help clear the
political, legal and commercial entanglements that the Naia 3 project had gotten into by the latter half of 2001.
These were blocking Piatco and Fraports efforts to secure badly needed government consents that lenders were
demanding prior to releasing a $440 million.
Less than a year later, she was moving for the revocation of Piatcos contracts after her proposals to remove alleged
unlawful and onerous provisions were rejected by Piatco. She was convinced the contracts and the project were
saddled with irregularities. It did not matter that Naia 3 would have been the first major infrastructure project
inaugurated in the first two years the Arroyo administration.
Climaco is no stranger to uncovering fraud. A magna cum laude graduate of the Ateneo de Zamboanga, Climaco
earned her spurs in the accounting profession by helping unravel the improper entries made by the Central Bank
that artificially inflated the countrys international reserves in the early 1980s. As a result of the feat, SGV & Co.
made her a partner in 1982 and chairperson shortly afterwards.
The bright but feisty accountant came to entertain grave doubts about the legality of the Naia 3 project in 2002
when she learned of the $123 million soft costs incurred by Piatco for the Naia 3 project. That looked very odd for
Climaco as Piatco was claiming at that time that the cost of the project was only $323 million. She also learned that
the projects financial model included questionable consultancy fees of $1.5 million a year for 25 years.
Still, she tried to propose amendments to the concession agreement that would address the defects. When that
failed, she hammered out a proposed deal sometime in August 2002 with Fraport for the government to take over
the terminal and pay $300 million to the German company and $100 million to the Chengs and other Piatco
shareholders. When the Chengs blocked the deal, Climaco turned into the projects No.1 critic.
She convinced Arroyo, over the objections of the Presidents then favorite Cabinet member, Justice Secretary
Hernando Perez, to revoke the concession agreement. As early as August 2002, Climaco was saying that the

Department of Justice (DOJ) was preparing a legal opinion declaring Piatcos contracts null and void ab initio or
from the beginning. Perez had initially denied it but Climaco was proven right when the DOJ indeed issued the
opinion on November 28 that year. A day later, Arroyo announced she was revoking Piatcos concession agreement.
By that time, Perez had gone on leave amid accusations from former Estrada financial adviser Mark Jimenez the
justice secretary was extorting money in exchange for dropping plunder charges against him.
Climaco also resigned as presidential adviser in early 2003 but Fraport AG in September accused her and Avelino
Cruz, then the presidential chief legal counsel, of undermining the project to ease out the Chengs and replace them
with what it called a government-favored interest. The charge was one of complaints cited by Fraport when it filed
an arbitration suit against the Philippine government before the World Banks International Commission for the
Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington DC.
The German firm also said that the two officials pressured it to hire, as legal counsel, Arthur Villaraza, Cruzs former
law partner and the presidents former private lawyer. Fraport said it did not hire Villaraza after the latter asked to
work anonymously and demanded to be paid tens of millions of US dollars to be deposited in overseas bank
accounts.
Villaraza has denied this. Fraport counsel Dr. Dietrich Stiller belied the extortion attempt in an apology letter to
Villaraza. He stated that, no USD20 mn request or similar request was made by any member of your firm in, or in
the context of, that meeting.
Though no longer with government, Climaco cannot completely leave the Naia 3 cases behind. Last year, she
testified before ICSID and was subjected to intense grilling by Fraport lawyers. ICSID dismissed Fraports suit in
August 2007.

VIC CHENG YONG

He aimed for the big leagues
Many people, even in Manilas small and parochial business community, have not heard of Vic Cheng Yong, Piatcos
founder. Nor could they believe that a relatively unknown operator of a public customs bonded warehouse at the
airport could beat a consortium put up by the biggest Chinese-Filipino taipans.
Yet, Cheng Yong belonged to a wellknown migrant Chinese-Filipino clan whose early pioneers founded Cheng Ban
Yek, a trading firm that makes the famous cooking oil under the Baguio brand. One of them, Ching Leng, also
organized La Suerte Cigar and Cigarette Factory, a major cigarette company that used to be Lucio Tans Fortune
Tobaccos main rival. Ching Leng is also credited with helping put up Philippine Blooming Mills, the countrys first
private steel mill.
Though Cheng Yong was related to the Cheng Ban Yeks founders, he did not play an active role in running the
trading firm. He instead went into chemicals trading after earning a chemical engineering degree from Far Eastern
University after the war. He set up Glee Chemical Laboratories Inc. which imported and distributed paints,
solvents, and other industrial chemicals.
After 1986, he went into the airport customs bonded warehouse business and set up Peoples Air Cargo and
Warehousing Co. Though it was only the third to win a license from the Bureau of Customs as a bonded warehouse
at the international airport, Paircargo quickly became a market leader in a few years.
When the government sought proposals to challenge AEDCs offer to build Naia 3 in June 1996, Cheng Yong felt he
was ready for the big time even though his air cargo company was less than a decade old. He reportedly first asked
to join the AEDC and when he was rebuffed, he countered with a very attractive offer that DOTC and MIAA officials
could not refuse. He got the concession.
It was a pyrrhic victory, however. The contract was subsequently revoked and the terminal, said to be 98 percent
complete, was expropriated by government. Cheng Yong is also fighting off criminal charges at the Sandiganbayan.

The antigraft court dismissed the charges against him last year for lack of probable cause, but government
prosecutors are appealing the decision with the Supreme Court. His legal woes are not yet over. He has vowed to
continue fighting the legal battles not so much to recover his investments but to clear his familys name.

LUCIO TAN
He wants Naia 3
Conspiracy theorists like to paint Lucio Tan as the hidden power behind the legal and policy reversals that have
befallen Piatco. In fact, the countrys second richest man and the owner of the countrys biggest airline had no need
for secret conspiracies to freeze the Naia 3 project, wrest it from the Chengs, and hound officials and private parties
to the deal. He has done so openly and publicly through complaints and cases filed with the countrys investigative
tribunals and courts.
MacroAsia, his inflight catering company, was one of the petitioners in the September 2002 suit that asked the
Supreme Court to nullify Piatcos contract. And no less than the corporate secretary of his AEDC filed the complaint
that became the basis for the Ombudsman to file a string of criminal cases against DOTC officials, and Piatco and
Fraport executives in January 2005. AEDC has also filed a case asking the Supreme Court to compel the
government to award him the right to operate Naia 3 after Piatcos contract was declared null and void.
Although government lawyers are formally opposing his petition for the high court to award him the right to
operate Naia 3, many officials accept that he plays a crucial role in any legal and commercial settlement that will
pave the way for the operation of the new terminal. He has offered to pay about $350 million to Piatco and Fraport
as compensation for building the facility.
Controversy hardly deters Tan from getting what he wants. It didnt stop him from acquiring control of the troubled
Philippine National Bank even though his Philippine Airlines (PAL) had one of the biggest past due loans with the
bank. Neither did the numerous government suits alleging his companies were part of the late strongman
Ferdinand Marcoss ill-gotten wealth stop him from acquiring majority ownership of PAL in the early 1990s. He lent
money to a group led by Antonio Cojuangco Jr. that won the bid for the airline but exercised his option to convert
the debt into equity when the borrowers failed to pay back the loan.
From his birth on July 17, 1934 in the southern Chinese province of Fujian, Tans meteoric rise during Marcoss
martial law is still the stuff of legend and speculation. Unlike the other wealthy taipans who began to build their
fortunes before or shortly after World War II, Tan put up his flagship company, Fortune Tobacco, only in 1966. It
quickly grew to become the countrys biggest cigarette maker in part because of government incentives and
assistance.
He repeated the same feat in banking. In 1977, he acquired the troubled General Banking and Trust, and renamed it
Allied Banking Corp. With generous support from the Central Bank, which provided a large dose of low-interest
loans and liberally approved its applications for branches, Allied Bank became one of the countrys biggest banks in
the early 1980s.
Tan studied chemical engineering at Far Eastern University, where Piatcos Cheng Yong was a schoolmate. He quit
school before graduating to work in a tobacco factory while Cheng Yong stayed on and got his degree. People who
know both men recall that in school, they went after the same girl. It seems the rivalry has not stopped. Now in their
70s, they are going after the same airport terminal.

THE GERMANS
They signed up Liongson
Bernd Struck was Fraports executive vice president and Piatco chairman while Hans Arthur Vogel was Piatcos

finance director. They represented the German company in the Piatco board of directors and stayed in Manila for
long stretches of time to help oversee the Naia 3 project.
The two German executives share the unusual distinction of perhaps being the only executives of a big European
company to face criminal indictments before the Philippines anti-graft court, the Sandiganbayan. The court also
issued warrants for their arrest after they failed to post bail and answer the charges brought against them.
They were charged with violating the countrys Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act for their role in hammering out
a third supplement to the amended and restated concession agreement between Piatco and the DOTC/MIAA that
the Ombudsman considers disadvantageous to the government.
Struck and Vogel were not signatories to the third supplement but, as members of the so-called Piatco special
team, the pair signed the highly controversial consultancy contract with Liongson, which government investigators
believe was a mechanism for making illicit payments to government officials.
Fraport is the German company that operates the Frankfurt International Airport. Naia 3 was to be Fraports
flagship overseas projectto demonstrate that it could be as good running airport facilities overseas as it does in
Germany. Attracted by the terminal projects supposedly high returns and the Chengs ability to secure concessions
from President Joseph Estradas government, Fraport put in $425 million or over 60 percent of Piatcos capital in
return for less than a third of management control.
Struck played an important role in convincing Fraports supervisory board during a meeting in March 1999 to agree
to invest in Piatco amid warnings from the companys financial adviser, KPMG, about country risks in the
Philippines. He pointed out that Estrada had just issued instructions to all government agencies to proceed with the
construction of Naia 3 as THE international airport of the Philippines. This calmed down worries about
competitive risks from other international airports that the government may build or expand in Luzon.
Vogel was also one of the 16 Piatco and Fraport officers and directors accused last year by the National Bureau of
Investigation Anti-Fraud and Computer Crimes Division of violating the Anti-Dummy Law. The NBI concluded that
Fraports direct and indirect shareholdings in Piatco, which accounted for 61.4 percent of the companys capital,
violated laws that restrict foreign investments in companies that operated public utilities, such as airport terminals,
to no more than 40 percent. The DOJ, after initially dismissing the complaint, recently reversed itself and upheld
the NBI complaint, paving the way for the filing of the case before a trial court.
The complaint is particularly ironic, especially on Vogels part. In a December 1999 meeting, the Fraport executive
was noted to have asked questions of the German companys Philippine lawyers that indicated Fraports awareness
of a concern about violations of the Anti-Dummy Law, according to the ICSID decision on Fraports complaint
against the Philippines. He should have paid more attention to the lawyers answers.

And the Lawyers Are

EDUARDO DE LOS ANGELES

Counsel for Piatco
Eduardo de los Angeles is a senior partner at corporate heavyweight and politically influential Romulo Mabanta
Buenaventura Sayoc & de los Angeles, the third largest law firm in the country.
Before De los Angeless firm was engaged by the Piatco consortium for the Naia 3 project in 2003, it was originally
engaged by its adversary, AEDC, in 1996 as its financial advisor. It subsequently became AEDCs counsels when it
was conceptualizing and preparing the bid for the Naia 3 project and when it was contesting the technical aspects of
the BOT award to Piatco. AEDCs lawyers manifested in its submissions to the Office of the Solicitor General the
firms conflict of interest in the issue.
But it was in January 2006 when the firms connections to Piatco came into the limelight. Romulo Mabanta tried to

bar the use of documents seized during a raid on its Hong Kong office as evidence in the arbitration cases abroad
and in the criminal cases here. The Philippine governments legal team requested the raid under the mutual legal
assistance agreement between Hong Kong and Philippine governments, as they were tracing bribes paid to public
officials channeled through two British Virgin Island companies. These were being administered by a Hong Kong
company, which was apparently sharing an office with Romulo Mabanta. The firm successfully countered that the
warrant undermined their legal professional privilege vested in their clients.
Nevertheless, on his own, De los Angeles is an expert on contracts, securities regulations, joint ventures and loan
syndications, and alternative dispute resolutions, especially when foreign clients are involved. Tucked under his belt
is extensive experience in the capital market, having been elected the first president of the Philippine Stock
Exchange in 1992. He became chairman of the Philippine Central Depository in 1994.
He continued to hold key positions, mostly as director, in other quasi-government agencies, such as the Philippine
Securities Clearing Corporation in 1995, and the Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corporation and the Philippine
Depository and Trust Corporation, both in 2003.
De los Angeles was also a private prosecutor during the 2001 impeachment trial of then President Joseph Estrada.
With a masters degree from Columbia University in 1970, he lectured at the Ateneo de Manila law school, his alma
mater. He eventually became the law schools dean from 1984 to 1990. In 2004, he was elected president of Manuel
Luis Quezon University. In 1987, while he was president of the Philippine Association of Law Schools, he assisted in
designing the model law curriculum which the majority of law schools in the country are using today.

LIWAYWAY VINZONS CHATO

Counsel for the Chengs
It was no surprise that Liwayway Chato took on the Chengs as clients. The Chengs, after all, are going against her
greatest adversary: Lucio Tan.
Chato, a tax lawyer, was appointed by then President Fidel Ramos as Bureau of Internal Revenues first woman
commissioner in 1993. Her stint as tax collector was marked by her brave, yet lonesome, court battles against Tans
alleged tax evasion between 1990 and 1992. The bureau under Chato filed nine counts of tax evasion charges against
Tan and other Fortune Tobacco officials in 1993, for allegedly selling its cigarettes through an intricate distribution
and marketing strategy even if most of them are non-existent. Chato alleged that these resulted in lower
computation of income taxes, ad valorem taxes, and VAT.
For 1992, Chato said Fortunes tax payments were short by up to P25.6 billion. She was eventually replaced by
another commissioner who decided to stop pursuing the case in 1998, saying the bureau found no evidence of any
tax fraud committed by Fortune Tobacco. At the Marikina trial court, where the cases were refiled, all were
dismissed.
When the cases were brought to the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, Chato lost again on a technicality,
partly because of the bungling in the classification of Fortune brands, which are locally manufactured but bear
foreign brands. The classification has an impact on how much tax Fortune owes the bureau.
For continuing to pursue the tax evasion cases against him and Fortune Tobacco Corp., Chato is still facing a civil
suit with P290 million in damages filed by Fortune. Although the order was issued in the discharge of her official
function, Tan wants Chato to pay damages out of her personal funds. In a June 2007 decision, the Supreme Court
decision junked Chatos motion to dismiss the case.
Chato has made the tax cases with Tan her personal battlecry, even as she pursued other careers. In 2001, she ran
for senator under the Reporma Party, citing her efforts to go against large-scale tax evaders, obviously referring to
Tan. But her 4.8 million votes were not enough to make her win a seat in the upper chamber.
She ran again in May 2007 for a congressional post as representative of Camarines Norte. This time, she won.
The Chengs cases are now handled by the Quasha Ancheta Pea & Nolasco law firm, one of the oldest firms in the

country.

FRANCISCO CHAVEZ
Counsel for Piatco
The high-profile solicitor general of former President Cory Aquino left government service in 1992, but continues to
hog the limelight to this day. He was a vocal opponent of martial law and founded an association of lawyers called
Bonifacio, which defended poor clients for free. Francisco Chavez graduated summa cum laude from West Negros
College and took his law degree from the University of the Philippines, cum laude.
Chavez defended Piatco during the initial phases of its anti-dummy case. He said he took them on as a client
because this was aligned with his other anti-corruption causes. He banked on this reputationof taking on
controversial cases like the plunder case against President Arroyo on account of the fertilizer fund scamwhen he
ran for a Senate seat in 2004 under the slate of presidential candidate Raul Rocos Aksyon Demokratiko party. But
just like the late senator, he lost for the second time. Chavezs first try was in 1992.

PERFECTO YASAY JR.

Counsel for AEDC and MASO chairman
Perfecto Yasay is the spokesperson of a group of service providers and petitioning workers at Naias old terminal
who are opposed to the Naia 3 project. They say Piatco plans to monopolize trade in the facility so they contested
the amendments to the Piatco concession contract with the government. These companies stand to lose their retail
concessions and business of providing in-flight catering, passenger and cargo handling, aircraft maintenance, and
other ground services at the Naia Terminals 1 and 2, if Piatco gets away with its contract amendments.
Stipulated in these amendments are the shutting down of international operations at Naia 1 and 2 that would allow
Naia 3, which Piatco was building, to operate as the only international passenger terminal in Luzon. And since
Piatco would have the exclusive right to choose whom it would do business with in Naia 3, these service companies
existing business contracts with MIAA and the international airlines in Naia 1 and 2 would not be honored.
MacroAsia, the publicly listed aviation support business of AEDCs Lucio Tan, would be one of those which stands
to lose business. Two of its subsidiariesMacroAsia Catering Services Inc.and MacroAsia-Menzies Airport Services
Corporationare providing in-flight catering and ground handling services, respectively, at Naia 1.
Yasay, who happens to be AEDCs lead counsel, has not only been pushing for the termination of the Piatco contract
with the government, but has also proposed to let AEDC, the original project proponents, assume the right to enter
into a negotiated agreement to operate the air terminal.
Yasay is former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. After retiring early from the SEC in 2000, he
ran for the Senate in 2001 and 2004 under the Aksyon Demokratiko party of former Sen. Raul Roco. In both races,
he garnered only 4.5 million votes and lost.
He left the SEC in March 2000 after bringing an insidious stock-price fixing scandal to worldwide attention. During
the impeachment trial of President Joseph Estrada in January 2001, he testified that the embattled president asked
him to whitewash the commissions investigation.
Under Yasays watch, BW Resources Corp., an online bingo gaming company owned by Estradas close pal, Dante
Tan, manipulated stock prices. Caught holding the bag were minority shareholders who lost their shirt. The stock
price zoomed to 5,000 percent in less than a year but Yasay didnt probe the spectacular rally while it was still
happening.
In his memoir In the Lions Den, Yasaywho in the 1980s worked on a New York radio show offering legal advice to
Filipinos who fled the Marcos regime wrote that despite the long history of the Philippine stock exchange, the SEC
has not successfully prosecuted a case of insider trading or brought a market manipulator to court

Perhaps he was hoping for better luck in the Naia 3 issue. He filed one of the first casesa plunder charge before
the Ombudsmanagainst then transportation Secretary Pantaleon Alvarez and Piatco officials in September 2001.

RETIRED SC JUSTICE FLORENTINO FELICIANO

Counsel for the Republic
There are few international law experts in the country and retired Justice Florentino Feliciano is the most eminent
and respected among them. Almost 80, he brings with him extensive experience as an arbitrator in international
investment and commercial disputes.
In fact, he is no stranger to the two arbitration courts where the Philippine legal panel, which he heads, is battling
project proponents Piatco and Fraport. He had served as an arbitrator at the International Centre for Settlement of
Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington, and at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris. The
Philippines recently won the arbitration case filed by Fraport at the ICSID.
His friends sum him up as a jurist, teacher, scholar, lawyer, and loyal citizen.
He was a partner at SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan (formerly SyCip Salazar Feliciano & Hernandez) for
about 20 years and was the firms managing partner in 1981. He handled corporate law cases and transactions
concerning anti-dumping, intellectual property rights, banking and insurance services, shipping and
telecommunications. In 1986, he joined the judiciary as an associate justice of the Supreme Court where he decided
a number of cases dealing with commercial law, tax law, commercial arbitration, and the administration and
recognition of domestic and foreign arbitral awards.
In 1995, he became a member of the World Trade Organizations newly established Appellate Body, the highest
international tribunal for trade disputes. Justice Feliciano was Chairman of the Appellate Body in 2000 to 2001.
During this period, he contributed immensely to the burgeoning jurisprudence on international trade law.
Justice Feliciano is also well known in the field of international arbitration.
He has acted as both an arbitrator and as counsel for parties in numerous international commercial and investment
arbitration disputes. In addition to his being a member of the ICC panel of arbitrators, and the ICSID roster of
arbitrators and conciliators, he was a member of the Arbitration Tribunal for the 1982 United Nations Convention
on the Law of the Sea.
He likewise served on the Asian Development Bank Administrative Tribunal from 1991 to 1995. And he was an
arbiter in various panels all over the world: the China International Economic Trade Law Arbitration Committee
(Beijing); the Japan Commercial Arbitration Association (Tokyo); the World Trade Law Associations Governing
Council (London); the International Development Law Institute (Rome); and the International Institute of
Humanitarian Law (San Remo). He is highly respected in the international law community having been, among
many other distinctions, an associate of the Institut de Droit International for almost 40 years and a member of the
Curatorium of the Hague Academy of International Law.
He earned his law degree from University of the Philippines, and his masters and doctorate degrees in law from
Yale.
In July 2003, Justice Feliciano was appointed by President Arroyo as the chairman of a special fact-finding
commission to look into the causes of the 2003 mutiny in Makati.

JOSE BERNAS
Counsel for Congressman Salacnib Baterina
Jose Bernas may be often associated with his uncle, the constitutionalist Joaquin Bernas, but he has made a name
and a flourishing law career for himself.
He has extensive experience in real estate, construction, information technology, financing and shareholder
agreements, and intra-corporate disputes. Bernas is external corporate counsel, corporate secretary, disclosure and

compliance officer of various profit and non-profit corporations.

In the Naia 3 case versus Piatco, he is counsel for congressman Salacnib F. Baterina, whom he first represented,
together with eight other congressmen, in an impeachment proceeding initiated against Supreme Court Chief
Justice Hilario Davide. This was his second involvement in an impeachment case. The first was that of former
Comelec Commissioner Luzviminda G. Tancangco.
He led the oral arguments for petitioners who sought the annulment of the Piatco contract, saying that it was void
because it contained government guarantees and substantial provisions that were not present in the original
concessionaire contract with the government. He pursued the case at the Supreme Court where he is challenging
the legality of the governments move to expropriate the terminal building and the nature of its compensation.
Before putting up his own law firm, Bernas Law, where he has been managing partner since 1993, he was with SGV
for three years working on consultancy services related to government negotiations, market share analysis, project
feasibility studies, and mergers and acquisitions. He moved on to the Castillo, Laman, Tan & Pantaleon law firm
where he culled more experience on joint ventures, tax advice, investment and finance law and general litigation,
and corporate housekeeping for six years.
Hes a professional lecturer on government contracts and conflicts of law at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
and at his alma mater, the Ateneo de Manila College of Law.
Bernas has handled high-profile cases here and abroad. He acted as special counsel for the lead underwriter of a P4billion financing bond issue for a project undertaken by the Public Estates Authority. He was also engaged by the
World Health Organization and UNICEF on the International Milk Code controversy, a pioneering case where
infant formula manufacturers were challenged in court because of their aggressive marketing and advertising.
He was involved in various cases against the estate of the Marcoses heard in Hawaii and in Singapore. He defended
the Philippine National Bank on a jurisdiction issue at a Hawaii federal court.
Some of his clients are legislators. For example, Bernas represented major political parties and the National
Movement for Free Elections, the largest election watchdog organization in the country, in a case against the
Commission on Elections. Bernas successfully obtained an injunction against the unauthorized implementation of
an electronic transmission system in 2004 that would have allowed unauthorized canvass or tabulation of votes by
the commission.
He is still representing five senators in a case pending at the Supreme Court on the annulment of the sale of the
Social Security Systems shares in Equitable-PCI Bank (now merged with Banco de Oro) because there was no
public bidding.

NESTOR BALLACILLO
Assistant Solicitor General
Nestor Ballacillo and his son were riding a tricycle in Barangay San Antonio on their way to Sucat in December
2006 when they were gunned down by two armed men. They died on their way to the nearest hospital. Ballacillo
was handling several controversial cases, such as the wealth cases against the Marcos family, the ban on
breastfeeding advertising case, and the Naia 3 case. Previously, he represented the government in an excess-charges
case against Meralco that resulted in a customer refund of about P28 billion.
Co-workers, friends, and family members describe him as straight, humble, kind, and a thoughtful and honest
person. He was a conscientious public official who inspired his peers and subordinates with his devotion to duty. He
was honest and frugal and was said to have died poor. He enjoyed simple food and often used public transportation.
At the Office of the Solicitor General, he was referred to as the Obispo (bishop) because of his rectitude and
religious devotion. He was an ex-seminarian. He graduated from the Arellano University School of Law in 1983 as
the class valedictorian.

RENE AUGUSTO SAGUISAG

Counsel for Pantaleon Alvarez
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Rene Saguisag is defending former transportation Secretary Pantaleon Alvarez in his battle to stop the Anti-Money
Laundering Council from prying open an Alvarez bank account citing privacy and human rights concerns. The
government bank examiners are after Alvarezs bank account to follow the money trail on the alleged bribes of
Piatco and Fraport.
When asked why he took on Alvarez as a client, he said, He came to me and asked for my help. Im well known as a
human rights lawyer. This case may have been an impermissible intrusion into the basic constitutional right to
privacy. With his usual literary flair, Saguisag quoted the ancient greeks for his clients right to due process: Strike
me but hear me first.
Saguisag, a cum laude graduate of San Beda, defended political dissidents during the Marcos era and advised Cory
Aquino who in turn designated him press secretary during her term. The one time editor-inchief of his college paper
was elected senator in 1987 and dropped out of politics when his term ended.
His other clients include former President Joseph Estrada who is facing plunder charges. He also defended Benito
Araneta, a cousin of First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, when his former colleagues in the Senate wanted to use canceled
checks and money records of Philcomsat (Philippine Communication Satellite Corp) against Araneta.