‘VM Sayson faces 3 plunder cases’

THE camp of Bacolod City mayoralty candidate Monico Puentevella said that Vice Mayor Jude Thaddeus Sayson does not only have one plunder case, but three, pending before the Office of the Deputy Ombudsman for the Visayas.

Sayson, together with other city officials, were co-accused in two more plunder charges awaiting resolution by Deputy Ombudsman Pelagio Apostol, a press release from Puentevella’s camp said.

The issue came into the fore again when Sayson, who is running for mayor against three-term Congressman Monico Puentevella, bannered Friday in a live broadcast over ABS-CBN’s “Ihayag: The 2013 Candidates’Forum”, a segment of The Morning Show, that he and other city executives do not have a single plunder case.

Sayson’s claims elicited a reaction from Puentevella, who corrected the vice mayor and showed him on TV a copy of documents of the plunder case lodged against him in connection with the local government’s acquisition on March 18, 2010 of the 58.67-hectare Arao property in Barangay Vista Alegre that was overpriced by more than P115 million.

Puentevella later showed and furnished Sayson the same documents, which the vice mayor accepted.

Records furnished the Ombudsman indicated that the City Assessor, on Jan. 21, 2010, has pegged at only P15 per square meter the actual fair market value of the Arao property which followed that the property would cost only P8.8 million.

The case on the overpriced Arao property acquisition is docketed as CPL-V-10-0125 before the Ombudsman after it was filed by Sarah Teresa Esguerra.

In CPL-V-C-1912, retired police officer Victor Eduardo charged Sayson, as co-accused, of plunder before the Ombudsman for the appropriation of P100 million for the Arao site development and another P16.97 million representing the 15 percent mobilization fund that was paid to the contractor Alfie’s Construction and Construction Supply.

“The Arao case is a double kill. First, they acquired it at a price disadvantageous to the government. Second, they allocated funds for it without complying with the process—especially the passage of a ratified contract by the SP—as defined under Section 22 C of the 1991 Local Government Code,” Eduardo told Apostol.

Esguerra, meanwhile, filed the third plunder complaint against Sayson, now docketed as OMB-V-C-10-0191-D, for the city government’s P250 million loan with the Philippine Veteran’s Bank without the required appropriations ordinance from the Sanggunian.