THE president of a fertilizer company may turn state witness as she has vital information on the P728-million project mess that is subject of a Senate inquiry.

Senator Richard Gordon, chairman of the Blue Ribbon committee, said yesterday he is inclined to recommend Julie Gregorio, president of fertilizer supplier Feshan Philippines, as state witness.

But Gordon said it will be up to the Justice Department to determine if Gregorio qualifies as a state witness against the conspirators in a scheme to defraud the government. “A person turns state witness if he or she is not the most guilty. But the decision is up to the DoJ.”

Gordon said it looks like the committee will be more gentle with Julie (Gregorio) than the others. This is because it was through her that bank accounts (about the fertilizer deal) were revealed, Gordon told newsmen.

Gordon noted that Gregorio’s supplemental affidavit submitted during the Jan. 20 hearing was vital in showing that a huge chunk of the funds purportedly intended for the Agriculture Department’s farm input-farm implements project ended up in some individuals’ pockets.

Gregorio recanted her earlier testimony that Feshan was paid P105 million for 90,000 bottles of liquid fertilizer that the group of Jimmy Paule and Maritess Aytona had purchased for distribution to farmers. She said her company was actually paid only P13 million at P150 per bottle, instead of P600 as she had claimed.

She said payments for the fertilizer were made through a bank account with LandBank-Elliptical, Quezon City branch, under the name of Marilyn Araos, an employee of Paule, who was the alleged bagman of Jocelyn Bolante, the former agriculture undersecretary who carried out the fertilizer project.

Gregorio said it was only recently that she was able to find out, through 40 microfilm copies of the bank account transactions, that as much as P152 million had been deposited in the same account in payment for the fertilizer.

With this admission, Gordon said it was established that only a small part of the fund really went to the actual purchase of fertilizer. He also noted that Gregorio signed a waiver allowing his committee to have access to the bank records of Feshan in support of her supplemental affidavit.

But Gregorio is not yet “out of the woods” and cases of money laundering and tax evasion can still be filed against her, Gordon said. Gregorio had testified that her company had applied for a tax amnesty on the P105-million income declared from the fertilizer sale, which she said was merely “dictated” by Aytona.

But she admitted that Feshan paid only P500,000 as amnesty tax, which is not even l0 percent of the income stated in the company books. Fel V. Maragay