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Wednesday, April 11, 2007
DPWH officials replaced over streetlamps scandal
By Elias O. Baquero
With Karlon N. Rama
CEBU CITY -- The six-month preventive suspension order on nine Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) 7 officials was finally served Tuesday, almost two weeks after the anti-graft office came out with the ruling.
The order was delivered to DPWH 7 last week but it was only Tuesday that the DPWH hierarchy decided on who will replace Regional Director Robert Lala, a source said.
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Lala confirmed to Sun.Star Cebu that he will start serving his suspension Wednesday and that he will be replaced by engineer Gamaliel Abiera, chief of the DPWH 7 construction division.
The DPWH website also listed Abiera as the district engineer of the 4th Iloilo Engineering District based in the Municipality of Sta. Barbara. He is a member of the Philippine Institute of Civil Engineers Cebu Chapter.
Lala did not reveal who are the replacements of Assistant Director Marlina Alvizo, chairperson of the bids and awards committee; OIC chief of the maintenance division Pureza Fernandez; OIC assistant chief Cresencio Bagolor; Regional Legal Officer Augustino Hermoso; Planning and Design Division chief Luis Galang; Administrative Division chief Restituto Diano; Assistant Director for Operations Gloria Dindin and Construction Division assistant chief Buenaventura Pajo.
They were ordered suspended in a six-page order of Tanodbayan Merceditas Gutierrez dated March 29, 2007. The anti-graft office is looking into the allegedly overpriced lamps and streetlights bought for the Asean summit last January.
The contract amounted to P365.87 million for the 2,310 lamps and streetlights installed in the cities of Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu.
Also preventively suspended were Mayors Thadeo Ouano of Mandaue City and Arturo Radaza of Lapu-Lapu City, as well as the officials of the city engineering departments of Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu who allegedly prepared the program of works and estimates (POWE) for the Asean summit lamps.
“The cost of each lamppost, apparently, was expanded to almost 10 times its actual cost,” the investigating panel said in its resolution.
The panel also said that the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) 7, which prepared the POWE for the decorative lamps for Cebu City and Lapu-Lapu City, pegged the total cost of the lamps at P50,172 each.
The price for the lamps, though, ranged from P83,000 to P350,000, according to the contract awarded to Manila-based Fabmik Construction and Equipment Co. and Gampik Construction and Development Corp.
Acting Visayas Deputy Ombudsman Virginia Santiago said the gap between the receipt of the order and its implementation may be due to problems in looking for replacements.
“Those sought to be suspended included the regional director and his assistants. If you take all of them out, you prejudice the entire office and its staff members,” she said.
Santiago also said DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan’s concern on whether the anti-graft office can implement preventive suspension orders during an election season and his plan to seek Commission on Elections (Comelec) clearance was also valid.
“We know that we can (enforce suspensions sans the election ban) but we recognize that he needs more than just our assertion and we understand his predicament,” she said.
After all, Santiago pointed out, if the suspended officials decide to go to court, Secretary Bonoan will be impleaded together with the anti-graft office.
Mayors Ouano and Radaza have gone to the Court of Appeals to stop their suspension. The court has yet to rule on their separate petitions.
Businessman Crisologo Saavedra earlier expressed his intent to file an administrative complaint against Bonoan for “refusing” to enforce the suspension order against the DPWH regional officials.
Saavedra’s complaint, consolidated with that filed by cause-oriented groups like Bayan Muna, resulted in the anti-graft office’s fact-finding investigation on the lamps. (Sun.Star Cebu)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Pangasinan. (April 11, 2007 issue)
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