Tuesday, June 10, 2008 Radaza arraignment put off By Karlon N. Rama Sun.Star Staff Reporter
LAPU-Lapu City Mayor Arturo Radaza, with his wife and a former Sandiganbayan prosecutor-turned-defense attorney, was in Manila last Friday and convinced the anti-graft court to postpone his arraignment on the Asean Summit lamppost case.
The Sandiganbayan 4th Division granted Radaza and his co-accused permission to separately submit motions asking the anti-graft court to reinvestigate the charge filed against them by the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas.
As this developed, businessman Crisologo Saavedra yesterday said he will file yet another complaint against officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the contractors who supplied the allegedly overpriced lampposts.
New complaint
This new complaint, he said, will no longer focus on the streetlights and the decorative lamps but the contracts that covered its installation – whether the cost of the electrical material, civil work and installation were bloated.
Saavedra said his new complaint will name Isabelo Braza and Romeo Fuentes, chairman and vice president of Fabmik Construction and Equipment Supply Company Inc., as well as officials from Mandaue City.
During last Friday’s hearing, the division, chaired by Associate Justice Gregory Ong, granted Braza’s request to travel out of the country for 30 days.
The proceedings before the 4th division is only one of seven other cases - the others having been raffled off to other divisions - stemming from the anti-graft office’s fact-finding investigation on the lamppost deal.
Other cases
The other cases involving Radaza and the Lapu-Lapu engineers are with the 5th and 1st divisions, chaired by Presiding Justice Teresita Leonardo-de Castro and Associate Justice Maria Cristina Cortez-Estrada.
Officials of the DPWH were present during the hearing.
Also present were people from the Office of the Lapu-Lapu City Engineer’s Office and the chairman of the company that supplied the allegedly overpriced streetlights and decorative lamps used during the 12th Asean Summit last year.
DPWH officials Robert Lala, Gloria Dindin, Marlina Alvizo, Pureza Fernandez, Cresencio Bagolor, Agustinito Hermoso, Luis Galang, Restituto Diano, Buenaventura Pajo were represented by Jose Flaminiano Sr., former president Joseph Estrada’s lawyer.
Lapu-Lapu City engineers Julito Cuizon, Fernando Tagaan Jr. and Rogelio Veloso were represented by lawyer Raymund Fortun.
Radaza is represented by the law firm of former Ombudsman Aniano Desierto but the latter was not present during the hearing. Instead, he sent former Sandiganbayan special prosecutor Leonardo Tamayo.
Saavedra, who was present in last Friday’s proceedings, is hopeful that the arraignment will push through. He said the court has scheduled it on the 4th of July.
In the meantime, he said, he’ll prepare the new complaint.
“I already approached the Office of the Special Prosecutor and was told that a new complaint would not interfere with the proceedings before the Sandiganbayan,” he said.
“These things (installation) weren’t covered by the previous investigations of the Ombudsman. However, during the course of their investigation, they established certain aspects of the transaction like the collusion and the overpricing,” he said.
Saavedra cited how the Program of Works and Estimates used by the DPWH in the transaction has been established to be the same one prepared by the Mandaue City Government and that the figures submitted by the supplier during the bidding matched the price to the last centavo.
Easy
“The only thing needed to be proven is the overpricing. And that is easy when you consider that the Ombudsman has already established the importation cost of the decorative lamps and the streetlights during the course of their investigation on the case now with the Sandigan-bayan,” he said.
According to the anti-graft office, the single arm and double arm street light only cost P6,000 and P7,500, while the triple arm models go for P11,000.
In the contract between the suppliers and DWPH, however, the supply of 78 sets of “single-arm” street lights were at P72,500 each, 58 sets of “double-arm” models of the same street light at P85,500 each, and four sets of “triple arm” units at P95,000.
