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Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Negligent but I didn’t steal: Cebu vice guv
By Karen M. Flores
CEBU -- On hindsight, he could have been “more diligent” in handling the Perdido Lex Foundation Inc., said Cebu Vice Gov. John Gregory Osmeña as he admitted negligence in the transaction.
The Perdido Lex mess has become an election issue, with the vice governor and Gov. Pablo Garcia trading charges on who should be blamed for the release of P5 million in Capitol funds to the bogus foundation. The governor’s daughter Gwendolyn is running against Osmeña in the gubernatorial race.
It has also put the Provincial Board on the defense. The board suspended accreditation of nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and asked the governor to withhold funds to any NGO.
Osmeña, breaking his silence since the controversy broke out two weeks back, said Monday it was the Office of the Governor that referred the president of Perdido Lex to his office last year.
In a privilege speech during the Provincial Board’s (PB) session Monday, Osmeña stopped short of giving a name by saying it was a “woman,” a former consultant of Gov. Pablo Garcia, who called him on his cell phone to refer Milagros Herera.
He was referring to gubernatorial candidate Gwendolyn Garcia whose idea it was for Herera to present Perdido’s “Touch Young Minds” computerization program.
“Did I approve the proposal of the foundation? Yes. Did I allocate discretionary funds under my office to this NGO? Yes. Did I instruct members of my staff to assist the long and convoluted process that must be completed for provincial funds to be released? Yes. Did I steal money? Absolutely not,” said Osmeña, who is also running for governor.
For his part, Governor Garcia denied all allusions to the involvement of his office by saying Osmeña should “concoct a better and more plausible defense. All those coincidences, did he expect you (media) to believe that?”
“My God, that’s too much. He’s a liar,” the governor said when sought for comment Monday afternoon.
Meanwhile, until all issues pertaining to the foundation are threshed out and the ad hoc committee in the PB finishes its evaluation of the hundreds of accredited groups, the board decided that it will not accredit any more NGOs for now.
The PB also approved a resolution sponsored by Member Jose Ma. Gastardo asking Governor Garcia not to release any financial assistance to any NGO until the committee finishes its investigation.
During its session Monday, the PB, for the first time, voted to reject the application of seven NGOs to be accredited with the Capitol in order to be eligible to receive financial assistance.
Banking on Osmeña’s name, the vice governor’s chief of staff also allegedly intervened so that checks totaling over P4 million were released from Capitol to Perdido Lex.
Osmeña later told reporters that he met Herera for the first time after the “former consultant” referred her to him to present the proposed project.
In denying that he has anything to do with Perdido Lex, he said it is merely “coincidence” that one of the incorporators shares the name of his cook and that the foundation deposited the check as financial aid from the Capitol in the bank located in the building where he lives.
As for the telephone number Perdido listed in its papers that was traced to be one of his office’s numbers, Osmeña said this is a “public phone” that is used to receive and make all sorts of calls in his office’s operation.
“Why on earth would I leave exactly three traceable details that all lead directly to me?” he said in his speech.
In his privilege speech, Osmeña admitted that “in the past few weeks, it has become clear that this foundation exists only in paper.”
He met Herrera only once during the presentation of the project to them.
In answer to the query of PB Member Victor Maambong, he described her as “of medium height, fair, with black hair not particularly fat or thin, middle age. I didn’t really get the impression of her as being attractive or unattractive.”
After this, Osmeña said he instructed his staff to assist foundation representatives “in the long and convoluted process that must be completed for provincial funds to be released.”
Willy Mulla, his chief of staff, was designated as “liaison.”
In Barili, he said Mulla and another staff member were supposed to simply assist Herera in presenting the project to the municipal council but she did not show up, so Mulla ended up taking all the questions.
Shortly after the release of a second check late last year, this time for P270,000, from Barili, the vice governor said they lost contact with Herera.
Mulla deleted her number in his phone book because she could not be reached through this anymore.
“If I knew where Herera is, where she lives, I’d produce her. But I don’t,” Osmeña told reporters in a talk after the session.
Maambong asked him if he ever wondered about what happened to the more than P4 million released from his discretionary funds earlier which Perdido has not been able to account for until now.
Osmeña admitted that his office has no project monitoring system.
He accused “the former consultant” (referring to Gwen) of plotting “this James Bondian scheme” during the time they were friends enough to throw each other parties to trap him later. “It’s something Dr. Evil would do,” he said with a smile.
He refused to name the consultant because “it looks bad for a man to attack a woman. There should be at least a fig leaf of decency.”
But Osmeña said of the “consultant” on her alleged “plot”: “How could she be that cold and calculating? How cold she be so false? This scheme is so cunning, devious and cold-blooded. I can’t imagine how badly she had me fooled.”
But the governor retorted, “Liar, liar, liar, period. So young yet so…” He refused to finish this quote attributed to former Manila mayor Arsenio Lacson who said this of a scheming politician who was just starting at that time.
(February 10, 2004 issue)
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