THE President’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, will be invited by the Senate when it resumes hearings on allegations of collusion in World Bank-funded projects, Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago said yesterday.

Mr. Arroyo aside, the committee on economic affairs has also invited former lawmakers Prospero Pichay and Jerome Paras, former Public Works Secretary Florante Soriquez, and three Public Works employees to shed light on allegations Filipino contractors rigged the bidding on the World Bank-funded projects.

The committee has also issued subpoenas to the Finance Department and the Office of the Ombudsman to furnish the Senate copies of the World Bank report on three blacklisted Filipino construction companies, and that was after the multilateral lending agency refused to do so.

Santiago, who heads the economic affairs committee, also called for a diplomatic protest against the World Bank for its refusal to cooperate with the Senate investigation.

“I was being polite, and dutifully observed protocol. All I got for my pains was a summary refusal. This is a gross manifestation of the antediluvian mentality that all developing states are beggars to be ignored at whim,” she said.

Santiago said she received a letter from World Bank country director Bert Hofman Friday, saying the report had been shared “with the relevant authorities in the Philippines” but could not be given to the Senate because its confidentiality had to be respected.

“In effect, the World Bank is saying that the finance secretary and the Ombudsman are relevant authorities but not the Senate. I educate these hoity-toity World Bank lawyers that in the Philippines, a public hearing is a constitutionally protected power of the Senate,” Santiago said.

She said that since the Bank was operating in Philippine territory, it was governed by Philippine laws.

“Under international law, the World Bank has to take our legal system as it finds it. If not, we can evict them,” she said.

“Mr. Hofman is impeding a Senate inquiry in aid of legislation. It is insensitive of the World Bank to fail to explain why giving the Senate a copy of the referral report would prejudice the World Bank.”

Santiago said hearings on the World Bank scandal would resume on Feb. 12.

Reports linking the President’s husband to the bidding have triggered calls in the House to reopen an investigation into the World Bank-funded road improvement program.

But two administration allies, Maguindanao Rep. Simeon Datumanong and Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez, said reports linking Mr. Arroyo to the bidding mess were highly speculative and “nothing but a demolition job.”

Earlier, Senator Panfilo Lacson identified a Japanese contractor, Tomatu Suzuka, who had quoted the late Senator Robert Barbers as telling him that no business could be done in the Philippines without paying money to top officials.

At the Palace, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said Malacañang would not lift a finger to help Mr. Arroyo if charges were filed against him in connection with the alleged rigging of World Bank-funded projects.

“He is a private individual. He has his own way of addressing it,” Ermita said of Mr. Arroyo.

Also yesterday, the team of investigators from the Public Works Department said they were having difficulty tracking down two staff who had been linked to the bidding anomalies.

“We are not sure if they are really employees of the department,” said Oliver Rodolfo, a member of the five-member fact-finding panel assigned to investigate the alleged collusion. Fel V. Maragay, Roy Pelovello, Macon Ramos-Araneta, Joel E. Zurbano