4 engineer’s office personnel face estafa raps

FOUR personnel of the District Engineer’s Office (DEO) in Bacolod City face estafa charges filed before the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas by a businesswoman.

Jocelyn Yee of SR Trading filed the case against Engineers Rene Cerna, Stanley Pido, Paulino Caberte, and Norma Delonguines on February 22 after unpaid orders of several materials were made.

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Estafa, according to Article 315 of the Revised Penal Code, is a case against any person who shall defraud another by any means of punishable by law.

In Yee’s affidavit, she claimed that she had been a supplier of various construction supplies, servicing in particular, for road repair and maintenance of the Department of Public Works and Highways.

It said when Caberte replaced Engineer Lauriano Alba as head of DEO, a series of unpaid orders started.

Pido was the acting maintenance engineer and Pido as acting materials control engineer.

Yee said Alba assigned the task of sourcing and negotiating of office requirements from various suppliers to Cerna.

“That at which time, immediate requirements of said office, which cannot be filled up by other suppliers within their required time frame, were coursed through SR Trading” said Yee.

She added that all of the supplies affiant delivered then were duly paid as promised.

Yee said that on April 2004, Pido asked the suppliers to fill up their office’s immediate requirement of 50 drums of hot asphalt.

The same officer requested for an additional 28 drums of hot asphalt.

However, none of the 78 drums of hot asphalt was paid as agreed by the two parties. The issue was brought to the DEO incumbent officer-in-charge, Delonguines, Yee said.

“Delonguines referred the issue back to Cerna, who facilitates the settlement,” she said.

As of this posting, the charged personnel could not be reached for comments.