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Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Group seeks probe into quarry 'anomaly'
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO -- A good government advocacy group whose leader is a well-known supporter of Pampanga Governor Eddie Panlilio asked the Provincial Government to investigate what it calls as "anomalous" activities in the province's quarry industry.
Lolita Hizon, chairwoman of Conscience Inc., said it has monitored some "anomalies," particularly the alleged recycling of quarry tax receipts, that deprive the province of revenues "to the enrichment of some people and therefore worthy of an investigation."
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In a letter submitted to Provincial Administrator Vivian Dabu last November 22, Hizon said 11 out of the 18 trucks that passed a quarry checkpoint within two hours last October 26 presented receipts bearing license plate PCY-875. She said the receipts had different validation dates.
"Something anomalous was taking place. It was evident that receipts already validated were re-used on October 26 between 9:30 p.m. to before midnight, which could not be logged anymore, to the prejudice of the province," Hizon stated in the letter.
She said such "discovery" makes one ask if the re-use of the same receipts had not been done before and will not be done again.
For her part, Dabu said there was no truth to the alleged recycling of validated quarry receipt issue raised by Hizon's group.
"It's plain and simple. The receipts presented are the lower half that remains with the driver, since the upper half is retained by us. The receipts are actually the accumulation of all receipts by one truck, with plate PCY-875. It is not true that there were 11 trucks," Dabu said.
She also belied Hizon's claim that the incident happened last October 26.
"We have interviewed the driver. He said he was stopped by someone who represented himself as Balas on October 28. It is not true that the event happened on October 26," Dabu said in a statement.
Filologo Rodriguez, a staff of Balas, which is in charge of quarry operations in the province, said: "It's quite impossible for the anomaly to happen."
"First, we found out through our investigation that the truck's route is from Floridablanca town going to Balintawak. It's impossible for one to travel back and forth 11 times using only a single truck from Florida to Balintawak," Rodriguez said.
He added: "Secondly, we checked on all the receipts that were recovered and we found out that they all passed through checkpoints, so it means they were used and no point to claim that they were recycled since our staff would not permit that."
Rodriguez believed that the person who gave the alleged information to Hizon was one of the former quarry checkers who were dismissed from service for some reasons.
According to him, one of them (quarry checkers) was dismissed after he was caught possessing marijuana while on duty.
Meanwhile, Hizon told Dabu that her group was surprised to receive a letter dated November 20 from the Office of the Provincial Administrator. "We do not remember having written to you, as the letter we wrote was to the governor who had requested for the documents to be transmitted to him," she said.
Hizon also informed Dabu that when she and her colleagues formed Conscience, Inc., "the governor was present and encouraged us to give advice and even criticisms for better governance."(JM/Sun.Star Pampanga/Sunnex)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Pangasinan. (December 5, 2007 issue)
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