SENATOR Nancy Binay rushed to the Senate hearing concerning the ballooning budget of the New Senate Building.
Binay reacted after monitoring from her office that Senator Alan Peter Cayetano made a high-ranking official of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) apologize during the hearing.
This happened after Usec. Emil Sadain admitted that he made a mistake in the initial cost of the project mentioned during a media interview. Sadain had previously said that Senator Cayetano’s report to Senate President Chiz Escudero that the building’s budget had ballooned to over P23-B was false.
Because of this, Binay, the former chairperson of the committee, accused Cayetano of inflating the cost when the DPWH official said it should only be P21-B.
Cayetano defended that the said figure came from Binay’s former staff in the committee, which he took over.
Their argument further heated up when Cayetano accused Binay of sitting on the P600-M landscape plan for the new building, which had been submitted to her office since March 2023.
It was revealed during the hearing that the construction of the New Senate Building has already been delayed by 852 days, leading to additional charges amounting to P78-B due to postponements.
The repeated revisions to the project plan and the presence of over 70 consultants were also questioned.
