MANILA, Philippines -  Megaworld Corporation official Noli Hernandez was not being accurate about the P10 million price reduction for The Bellagio penthouse unit sold to Chief Justice Renato Corona, Sen. Sergio Osmeña III said Wednesday.

Speaking to ANC, Osmeña said he was bothered by some of Hernandez's claims about why the price of the Bellagio unit was reduced from P24.5 million to P14.5 million.

"He is not being accurate. He was being glib. He was obviously rehearsed and I am bothered because when it was convenient for them, he would even answer questions about pending cases in the Supreme Court and he is not a lawyer of Megaworld. He is the marketing manager," he told ANC.

Asked who would have rehearsed Hernandez, Osmeña said: "His bosses."

On Tuesday, Hernandez denied that he gave Corona a P10 million discount on The Bellagio penthouse unit to curry favor from the Chief Justice due to pending cases of Megaworld before the Supreme Court.

The Megaworld executive said he deducted P5 million from the original P24.5 million asking price because the unit was unfinished and sustained water damage from a typhoon.

He cited different reasons for the additional P5 million discount including the onset of the global financial crisis, the fact that it was the last unit to be sold in The Bellagio, and because the Coronas paid for the unit in a year.

Unfinished unit

Osmeña, however, raised several questions about Hernandez's statements.

He said he asked Megaworld Corp. to produce sales records of all the units in Bellagio 1 to see if the other 5 penthouse units were given similar discounts.

He noted that instead of the P80,000 per square meter price quoted by Hernandez, one penthouse was being sold for P134,000/square meter or total price of P62 million. The unit, however, is 50% bigger than the unit sold to Corona.

Osmeña also asked the developer to produce the engineer's report to see if other units could have sustained damage in the typhoon or if the particular unit sold to the Coronas was the only one that was damaged, prompting the initial P5 million discount.

"What I'm trying to find out is -- there is no developer that would give a unit that is unfinished as to structure especially if it is a condo unit because it is a tall building and they are responsible for the integrity of the structure. They cannot say, well you have the penthouse so you take care of the roof. That's not so because the roof is going to affect everybody in the building not just the unit immediately beneath it," he said.

Bellagio had no insurance?

The senator said he doubted Hernandez's statement that Megaworld did not insure the Bellagio from natural calamities such as a typhoon while it was being built.

"If you are a developer and there is a contractor working for you and you also borrow money from the banks for the construction loan, that bank alone would require you to insure the construction because if they don't and something happens, the bank is not going to get paid," he said.

Osmeña said if Bellagio was insured, an adjustor would have taken photos of the water damage to make sure that the developer would not exaggerate the extent of the damage.

"If there is insurance cover, photos are taken by the adjustor if there is any damage to the unit because after all someone could exaggerate and say 'There's damage to my unit . It would cost me P3 million to fix it up.' They are not going to swallow that. They are going to send their adjustor over and take a look and take photos and say 'No, this is going to cost me P100,000 and that is what I am going to pay you,'" he said.

"Mr. Hernandez said 'Wala, we didn't have insurance.' He said no, we didn't take photos. I don't believe him. If you're going to have damage as much as P5 million, you are going to take photographs and show it to your insurance carrier and say 'You pay me this,'" he added.

He also questioned Hernandez's statement that he gave the additional P5 million discount to Corona because it was the end of the year.

"You see the contract was signed in September 2008. So when this gentleman was claiming that we ought to give discount because it is the end of the year and we want the sale to show up in our books, that's not exactly true. If it was December, that would be a more credible argument but in September it was way too early," he said.

Prosecutors didn't do homework

Osmeña said Megaworld Corp. has asked the Senate impeachment court to be given until Monday to produce the documents required. This means that Hernandez will not be required to return to the witness stand today.

The senator said he supports Sen. Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III's assertion that the alleged P10 million discount is not part of the paragraphs 2.2 and 2.3 of the second Article of Impeachment.

However, he said he had to stand up "when the witness came up yesterday and started misrepresenting things."

He added that he will ask his fellow senator-judges to check the Megaworld documents. "I plead that if there are misrepresentations had been made, they are probably trying to hide something," he said.

The senator, meanwhile, backed his assertion that the House prosecutors came to the trial unprepared. Prosecutors on Tuesday admitted that they were unable to talk to Hernandez before the trial since he only showed up after the hearing started.

"It's been pretty obvious to me anyway from Day 1 that these guys weren't prepared or they were really lacking recent experience because they've been legislators rather than working lawyers so it showed in Day 1, it showed in Day 2, it showed on Day 3. This is a little bit upsetting because if you are not good, I can accept that but if you don't do your homework, and you make us the senator-judges come here everyday to listen to you and it's so obvious that you did not prepare properly, I get pretty upset."