Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile questions Filipino contractor Eduardo de Luna in the Senate hearing on World Bank's blacklisting of three Filipino construction firms.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson on Tuesday said Filipino contractor Eduardo de Luna, who has been blacklisted by the World Bank for alleged corruption, is close to First Gentlemen Jose Miguel Arroyo.

Lacson said de Luna met up with the First Gentleman at least 20 times in the year 2002, referring to Arroyo's appointments book.

He also enumerated a number of instances that de Luna was with Arroyo in the Makati area, saying that he was even in the same place at the same time with former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn "Jocjoc" Bolante, the alleged architect of the P728-million fertilizer fund scam.

Citing a newspaper column,  Lacson revealed that a group of five contractors--which included one of the three blacklisted firms--brought P70 million in bribe money to a building in Makati City last year. The P70 million in cash bribes, Lacson said, represented around five percent of the P1.4-billion budget for either the EDSA road repair project or the NAIA access road project.

Lacson said that the group--while carrying the huge box of cash amounting to P70 million--opted to use the staircase over the elevator after going to the wrong floor of the building. The package was too heavy, Lacson said, causing the box to be ripped open, revealing its contents.

De Luna, president of E.C. de Luna Construction Corp., denied Lacson's allegaton that he is close to the President's husband. He also denied being involved in an alleged P70-million bribe given by a cartel to bag a major road construction project.

"I am not close to the First Gentleman. Maybe we only got to meet three times," de Luna said Tuesday before the Senate Committee on Economic Affairs.

De Luna denied all allegations against him, saying that the Senate committee should instead present witnesses to support their claims.

"I don't have anything to do with that. I don't know anything," he said.

When asked by Senate Economic Affairs Committee Chair Miriam Defensor Santiago on the relevance of his inquiry on de Luna's ties with the First Gentleman and the alleged P70-million bribe, Lacson said he is aiming to find out if there are fixers or syndicates in the government, which could've helped contractors such as de Luna to bag numerous construction projects.

"Is there a syndicate within the DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways), are there fixers there? These are the questions which will be asked later on. At any rate that's the relevance I'm trying to establish," Lacson said.

Santiago eventually agreed on Lacson's line of questioning which could prove conspiracy between contractors and government officials.

Early this year, the World Bank uncovered a major cartel involving local and international firms bidding on a Philippines road project, barring seven companies--three from the Philippines and four from China--from bidding on its projects due to alleged corruption.

The WB's corruption-fighting unit said the firms were blacklisted for "engaging in collusive practices" during the bidding of the project financed by the Washington global development lender. The three Filipino firms include E.C. de Luna Construction Corp. and its owner de Luna (barred permanently), Cavite Ideal International Construction and Development Corp. (barred for four years), and CM Pancho Construction Inc. (barred for four years).