Second of Three Parts

What graft investigator Janice O. Baltazar failed to discover was that Two Chefs, the food firm that cornered contracts from Barangay Bel-Air in Makati City, had been doing business with barangay officials for years. In fact, before the questionable catering deal worth P116,900 was discovered and became the basis for charges against barangay officials, the food contracts given to Two Chefs, which was owned by the daughter-in-law of village chief Constancia “Nene” Lichauco, were more expensive, if not more blatantly illegal, since the money used to pay the contracts came from Lichauco’s own discretionary funds.