Wednesday, March 21, 2007 PAGC head: no probe takeover
A FACT-finding team from the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC) is already in Cebu and is gathering information about Cebu’s multi-million-peso Asean summit lampposts.
PAGC chairperson Constancia de Guzman and Acting Deputy Ombudsman Virginia Palanca-Santiago confirmed this in separate interviews yesterday, with de Guzman stressing that their team is moving “in harmonious cooperation” with the anti-graft office.
De Guzman said the team is here partly to gather evidence and, in so doing, determine if preventive suspensions are in order.
Santiago met with representatives of the team on closed doors yesterday morning and, beyond confirming that the persons in the meeting came from PAGC, said little else.
She explained that preventive suspensions can only be imposed in formal investigations and not fact-finding probe but said PAGC may recommend to the President the temporary relief of any appointed official depending on the provisions of its charter.
Meanwhile, Gampik general manager Dante Valencia, in a dyLA interview, said they will ask the Court of Appeals to collect the balance of P210-million contract with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
He denied overpricing, saying their lampposts only cost between P85,000 and P95,000 each.
He said the local governments were not involved in the purchase. But their chairman had visited Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeńa to let him check the design of the lampposts.
“Ayaw naming ma-bypass ang mayor (We did not want to bypass the mayor),” Valencia said.
Gampik and Fabmik Construction and Equipment Corp. were the suppliers of the lampposts put up along the ceremonial route for the Asean summit last January in Cebu.
Unlike the streetlamps in Cebu and Lapu-Lapu cities, which cost about P85,000 each, those in Mandaue City were priced about P224,000 to P325,000.
The Mandaue City Government, through the Office of the Mayor and the Office of the City Engineer, also prepared the program of works and estimates for the lampposts in Mandaue.
Businessman Cris Saavedra and party-list group Bayan Muna have filed complaints before the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas over the allegedly overpriced lampposts.
“In this highly charged political environment, it is obvious that the opposition is using this controversy to hit me. This is a desperate move by the opposition. I am thankful that I am given the opportunity to clear my name in the court of law,” Mandaue City Mayor Thadeo Ouano said in a text message to Sun.Star Cebu.
In an interview, de Guzman denied that they are taking over the investigation—a move that draw quick and sharp comments from sectors that saw it as the makings of an impending whitewash now that Defense Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane has been impleaded.
Ebdane, who was PNP chief when the so-called Edsa 3 movement threatened Arroyo’s stay in power, was the public works secretary when all summit expenditures were prepared and disbursed.
It was earlier reported that PAGC wanted to take over the investigation from the local anti-graft office. It also ordered such agencies as the DPWH, the Department of Budget and Management and the Commission on Audit to turnover all pertinent records to the commission within three days.
“There is no reason to even think it is a takeover,” de Guzman said, adding that they are not requiring the existing complaints to be withdrawn and filed again.
“This is a concurrent and parallel investigation that stems from the authority of the President to appoint people to government positions and to fire them because of inefficiency or irregularity while in office,” she said.
The PAGC has administrative authority over presidential appointees.
The Office of the Ombudsman has criminal and administrative jurisdiction against all government officials and employees.
As this developed, anti-graft investigators handling the lamppost probe gave limited access to the documents it has gathered in the fact-finding.
A document contradicts the claim of one of the suppliers.
The cost estimates attached to the contract signed by Fabmik’s Isabelo Braza and DPWH Assistant Directors Gloria Dindin and Pureza Fernandez for the supply of 89 round-headed lampposts in Mandaue stated that the total cost is to be computed on a per unit basis.
The contractor’s add-on to the per-unit value is to cover installation costs and other expenses.
Fabmik’s Romy Fuentes, in a radio interview, earlier accused the people who filed the complaint of making “a regular transaction appear very irregular” by misrepresenting the total project cost as the collective cost of all the lampposts.
He said the total project cost should be computed per “circuit kilometer or linear meter.”
So, instead of saying that the 89 round-headed lampposts installed from the Ouano wharf to the UN Ave. in Mandaue cost P224,000 each, people should say that the government paid P4,450 per linear meter of post-laying development that spanned four kilometers.
“It’s an old trick. We are talking about the same project cost. But instead of dividing it (project cost) per the cost of each lamppost and the cost of the installation, they want to divide it by the distance,” an investigator said.
And because the new computation has a bigger divisor, the quotient will quote a smaller figure, the investigator explained.
Saavedra, interviewed separately, called Fabmik’s justification ridiculous, saying the overpricing will become very evident once he starts supplying and installing the same lampposts to the South Reclamation Properties in Cebu City for as low as P31,000 each.
Saavedra was at the anti-graft office yesterday but was not able to take part in the meeting between PAGC and the anti-graft office.
He, however, got to speak with de Guzman over the telephone —a voice conference patched to an on-going press conference being held at the PAGC office. He reiterated that he prefers to cooperate in the investigation with the local anti-graft office.
During the conference, a Manila-based reporter asked if he took part in the lamppost bidding, lost and was now filing the complaint to get back at the contractor and DPWH.
“I did not take part in the bidding and I am not connected with any political party. I am Cris Saavedra, a businessman from Cebu and a taxpayer. I am doing this because it is my duty,” he said. (KNR/With AAG)
