Serious questions are being raised about the Philippines government’s decision a year ago to rent an old, slow, bedbug-infested passenger ship for $1.8 million (€1.6 million) to ferry 766 Filipino workers from Libya to Malta on 15 August, the portal of the Philippines Daily Inquirer newspaper has reported.

These questions arose after it was disclosed that a high-speed catamaran ferry ship – operated by Malta-based company Virtu Ferries – used by the US State Department to evacuate US citizens from Libya to Malta was offered to the Philippines government for less than half the cost it paid to a Maltese broker.

Alex Polidano is believed to be the Maltese businessman who negotiated the deal with the Philippines government which led to the €1.6 million agreement.

Many of the 766 evacuees later expressed regret over leaving their jobs in Libya after complaining about the tough conditions they experienced on board the government’s chartered ship, the F/B Bridge.

The evacuation had been made despite calls by the Libyan government to the Filipinos to remain in the country due to the fact that it feared the collapse of the Libyan health system with the departure of the Filipino health care workers.

Following their arrival in Malta, The Malta Independent on Sunday reported that a number of Filipinos had complained of ill-treatment, pointing out that most of them had slept on the floor and that the cabins for children, the elderly and pregnant women were in a bad state. Following the complaints, the Department of Foreign Affairs in the Philippines had launched an inquiry but the conclusions of its investigation have not yet been released. This newsroom is awaiting replies from the spokesman for the Foreign Affairs Department in the Philippines, Charles C. Jose, in connection with the investigation.

Upon their arrival in Manila from Malta, the evacuees reportedly showed the media cell-phone camera recordings of their voyage, which included footage of them sleeping on the ship’s floor and not being provided with food or water on the day-long journey from Libya to Malta.

One nurse named Zel showed the bites from bed bugs all over her body that she said she had acquired on the ship. The ship’s manager denied her request for medication, saying: “That’s just a scratch.”

After the video of the poor treatment of Filipino evacuees on board the F/S Bridge was aired on Philippines television, the country’s Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) immediately announced that it would carry out an investigation into their complaints. “Those accountable will be taken to task,” vowed DFA spokesman Mr Jose.

But new questions about the government’s contract with the “self-employed” business professional were raised in Malta at the Summit Conference of the European Network of Filipinos in the Diaspora (ENFID) held in Valletta between 31 July and 2 August.

Reportedly Kevin Attard – the person who tried to get a better deal regarding a ship for the Filipinos when he negotiated with Virtu Ferries – had disclosed that in July last year, the then-outgoing Philippines Ambassador to Italy Virgilio Reyes had requested him to help the Philippines government to find a passenger ship that could ferry Filipino workers from Libya to Malta.

Mr Attard was a major sponsor of the ENFID conference. As CEO of Attard Holdings Ltd, the leading Maltese company for customs and shipping freight services, Mr Attard was the ideal resource person for Ambassador Reyes to contact as he was also the former Honorary Consul of the Philippines in Malta when it was under the Philippines Embassy in Libya, before jurisdiction was transferred to the Philippines Embassy in Italy.

 

Email exchange between Attard and Virtu Ferries director

Following Mr Reyes’ request, Mr Attard contacted Francis Portelli, the director of Virtu Ferries Ltd, which operates a fleet of high-speed passenger catamarans, many of which were used in 2011 by the US and Australian governments, the International Red Cross, Doctors without Borders and various corporations which sought to evacuate their personnel from Libya.

Mr Attard produced an email sent to him on 29 July 2014 at 10.36 am from Mr Portelli under the heading “Evacuation Out of Libya obo the Philippines Government”. In this email, Virtu Ferries offered to rent out its high-speed vessel HSC San Gwann to the Philippines government to ferry its citizens from Libya to Malta in just six hours for the price of “Lumpsum Euros 345,000”. It was reported that the ship could carry 427 passengers and garage 22 cars (which can be used for a large volume of luggage).

While Mr Attard was negotiating with Virtu Ferries to reduce its price to €300,000, he was informed by Mr Reyes that the Philippines Consul-General in Rome, Leila Lora-Santos, had travelled to Malta and had already made other arrangements. Mr Attard wondered why Ms Lora-Santos had not bothered to contact him while she was in Malta. She knew Mr Attard because she had written to him in February 2014, informing him that his services as honorary consul of the Philippines in Malta were no longer required.

 

Alex Polidano brokered €1.6m deal with Philippines government

It was subsequently reported in the Manila daily newspapers that some time between 6 and 11 August 2014, Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) Officer Cynthia Lamdan had flown from Manila to Malta to sign a €1.6 million contract with Mr Polidano, a Malta businessman who described himself in his personal LinkedIn profile as “self-employed” and as “an international business professional with a reputation for motivational leadership and a strong record of achievement; building new operations, driving growth, performance improvement and transformational change.” Reportedly, there is no mention in Polidano’s professional profile of his affiliation or connection with Ocean Marine Services Ltd, the company he claimed to represent in the €1.6 million Philippines government rental contract he signed.

It appears that no one from the DFA or the OWWA bothered to investigate either Mr Polidano or Ocean Marine Services Ltd, or check their references or even Google them before signing the €1.6 million contract.

 

Polidano was business associate of Ryan Schembri who is still on the run from creditors

Blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia had reported that Mr Polidano was a business associate of Ryan Schembri – a businessman who is still on the run from his creditors and is believed to have fled to Dubai.

 

The main questions that have been raised

For 766 passengers, Virtu Ferries would have used two high-class, high-speed catamarans for a combined total cost of €690,000 and not an exorbitant fee of €1.6 million. Instead of a full day of uncomfortable travel, the Filipino overseas workers (OFW) would have been in Malta in only six hours.

Why did the Philippines government choose to enter into a contract with Mr Polidano? Why did it not engage in due diligence to learn about alternatives offered by other ferry companies in Malta? Why did the government not check Mr Polidano’s references before awarding him a contract that paid him €2,115 for every OFW ferried from Libya to Malta?