You could choose to create 3 different templates for select, continue or denied.

my $tmpl = "";
my $item = "CONTINUE";

if ($item eq "SELECT") {
    $tmpl  = "select.tmpl";
} elsif ($item eq "CONTINUE") {
    $tmpl  = "continue.tmpl";
} elsif ($item eq "DENIED"){
    $tmpl  = "denied.tmpl";
}
my $template = HTML::Template->new( filename => $tmpl );
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So no ifs are needed in your template (i try to put as less logic as possible in my templates as i can)
Do you want (simple) logic? Try HTML::Template::Expr.

However, you may wonder if you need it. Another nice trick you can do with HTML::Template; call a perl function by using parameters, so you don't even need to register a function like in HTML::Template::Expr.

# template.tmpl
<TMPL_VAR NAME="function_xyz">

# Perl:
my $tmpl = HTML::Template->new( filename => 'template.tmpl' );
my @all_params = $tmpl->param();

foreach (@all_params) {
    if ($_ =~ /^function_/i) {
        my ($a,$b) = split (/_/,$_,2);
        $tmpl->param($_    => $b() );
    }
}

sub xyz {
 return "template value needed";
}
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