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Tuesday, November 18, 2003
Tom defends pals who win biddings
By Charmaine Y. Rodriguez
CEBU -- He finds nothing wrong if his close friends win bids at Cebu City Hall, but Mayor Tomas Osmeņa ordered a "focused" audit on transactions involving the alleged favored supplier of former general services officer Rolando Ardosa.
Because his supporters, like Franklin Ong, won in an "open and fair" bidding, Osmeņa believes this should not be questioned at all.
Ong is the supplier of the City's controversial P20.7-million Hino dump trucks and bitumen, an asphalt component.
Arthur "Art" Osmeņa, meanwhile, won the bid to supply crushed gravel to the local government. He is the brother of the owner of One Citilink Terminal Inc., whose operation became a source of tension between the mayor and the City Council Monday. (See separate story, 2)
"We have this culture that if you're a friend of the mayor and you're doing business with the City you're corrupt, you're a crony. Maybe you have a hangover from Martial Law," he said in a press conference Monday.
"If my supporters want to help, what will I do? Say no? Only my enemies can do business with the government? What am I supposed to do, get the bidder with the highest price?" he asked.
Section 4 of Republic Act 3019, also known as the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, says it's unlawful for "any person having family or close personal relation with any public official" to "capitalize, exploit, or take advantage" of such relation.
Taking advantage includes "directly or indirectly requesting or receiving any present, gift or material, or pecuniary advantage from any other person having some business, transaction, application, request or contract with the government, in which such public official has to intervene."
The act defines a close personal relation as to include "close personal friendship, social and fraternal connection, and professional employment all giving rise to intimacy, which assures free access to such public officer."
Osmeņa complained that his allies in Bando Osmeņa-Pundok Kauswa-gan (BO-PK) have questioned the decisions he made before he went on a two-week vacation in the US. He returned home last Saturday.
He said their attitude would be bad for investors for the South Reclamation Project (SRP).
"(The BO-PK split) is the least of my concerns. If the City Government adopts the same policies expressed by the City Council, patay gyud ta. If SRP collapses, there will be no BO-PK anyway," he added.
Osmeņa also criticized his allies for questioning the rerouting scheme implemented last month for the operation of One Citilink Terminal.
While defending his friends' businesses with City Hall, Osmeņa asked a special audit team to go over the transactions the City entered with Saikoh Motors Sales.
He thinks Saikoh is the favored supplier of Ardosa, whom he assigned to handle special projects while the investigation is ongoing.
The mayor Monday showed reporters an abstract of the public bidding for the 10 units of surplus engines.
Two suppliers, Cebu Allied Parts and Saikoh, quoted P48,000 and P37,500, respectively.
He revealed that another local supplier, which did not participate in the bidding, only quoted P20,000 while a Manila-based supplier quoted P18,000 only.
Osmeņa said he suspected "something funny" was going at the General Services Office but it wasn't until he came across the document on the bids for the engines that he took action.
"I suspected this before pa. I know there are other persons involved and that there's a whole syndicate there," he also alleged.
Sun.Star tried to get Ardosa's comment but he did not report for
work Monday.
Osmeņa would not answer queries on whether Ardosa would lose his post if the allegations are proven true.
Osmeņa said he will just "shuffle people around" and ask the local awards committee to explain.
He cancelled Monday the planned purchase.
Some members of the local awards committee also have yet to sign the abstracts and resolutions containing the recommendation to award the purchase of 622 metric tons of bitumen worth P11.94 million to Phil Asia Resources Inc., which is owned by Ong.
Also, Osmeņa has yet to sign the certificates of canvass and abstracts of the bidding for the 4,108 cubic meters of crushed gravel so he could award the P1.76-million contract to Sumo Aggregates Inc. for the City's Operation Asphalt Storm.
Sumo is owned by Arthur, his sister Helen Osmeņa-Lim and boxing promoter Rex "Wakee" Salud.
Lim is also an incorporator and treasurer of One Citilink.
Arthur and Helen are not related to Mayor Os-meņa or the other Cebuano Osmeņas since Art's clan only borrowed then President Sergio Osmeņa Sr.'s surname during the naturalization process.
(November 18, 2003 issue)
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