Saturday, March 31, 2007 Local DPWH officials called to head office By Elias O. Baquero Sun.Star Staff Reporter With Rianne C. Tecson
DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan called to Manila the officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) 7 who were ordered suspended by the Office of the Ombudsman in connection with the alleged overpriced purchase of decorative lamps and streetlights.
Summoned were DPWH 7 Director Robert Lala, Assistant Director Marlina Alvizo, Pureza Fernandez of the maintenance division, regional legal officer Agustinito Hermoso and Gloria Dindin, assistant director for maintenance operations.
Local officials of Mandaue City, including Mayor Thadeo Ouano, and Lapu-Lapu City led by Mayor Arturo Radaza were also put under preventive suspension for six months while an investigation on the purchase is being undertaken. (See related story, A1)
Lala’s secretary, Linda Taborada, said the director and his subordinate officials departed for Manila Thursday, hours after news of their suspension broke.
DPWH 7 employees who attended yesterday’s full council meeting of the Regional Development Council in Bohol said they are afraid the suspension of the agency’s key officials could hamper the completion of various projects they are implementing. They hope replacement can be named immediately.
In an interview with Sun.Star Cebu, Dindin maintained her innocence, pointing out that she could also be cited for insubordination had she refused to sign the documents for the purchase of the lamps and streetlights, which amounted to P365.87 million.
Dindin also lamented that in her 37 years with the agency, this is the first time that she was dragged into a controversy.
Dindin represented DPWH 7 Director Robert Lala during the meeting in Tagbilaran City, Bohol.
She refused to say what actions she and her fellow officials are taking, only that they will make sure their names are cleared.
The lamps and streetlights, totaling 2,310 and put up in the cities of Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu, were bought for the Asean summit last January.
Their price ranged between about P85,000 to P350,000 each, inclusive of installation costs.
A DPWH 7 record showed that P43.3 million was allocated for the supply, delivery, installation, testing and commissioning of streetlights for both sides of the road from the old Mactan-Mandaue Bridge to Barangay Punta Engaño in Lapu-Lapu City.
About P83.950 million was allocated for the lamps put up on the right side only of the road from the old Mactan-Mandaue Bridge to Barangay Punta Engaño.
Manila-based Gampik Construction and Development Corp. and Fabmik Construction and Equipment Corp. won the contract of the lamps and streetlights.
Punta Engaño Barangay Captain Angel Rodriguez said that only a few lamps were installed in his barangay where Hilton Hotel Resort and Spa and Shangri-la’s Mactan Island Resort and Spa are located and where some of the Asean summit participants were billeted.
Rodriguez said residents even caught some persons attempting to pull out at least two decorative lamps.
In an ABS-CBN TV Patrol Cebu report report, former DPWH secretary and now Defense Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane was here in Cebu yesterday to give moral support to the DPWH 7 officials.
Interviewed at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport, Ebdane said everything in the purchase was legal and they will present the documents to prove this in a proper time.
Meanwhile, businessman Crisologo Saavedra, one of the complainants in the lampposts case before the anti-graft office, said he is seeking assistance from the National Bureau of Investigation and the police after receiving reports that one of the respondents is putting a bounty on his head.
Saavedra filed an omnibus motion last March 26 asking Acting Deputy Ombudsman Virginia Palanca-Santiago for the immediate suspension of Mandaue City Mayor Thadeo Ouano, Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Arturo Radaza, Lala and several others “in order to protect the documents now under their care and control.”
Saavedra also filed a separate complaint against DPWH officials for rescinding his P79-million contract for the traffic surveillance cameras for the summit.
