Lamp supplier twits DPWH: Failure to explain blamed for raps

Incompetence and insufficient explanation.

These were the factors that resulted in the adverse findings by the Office of the Ombudsman and led directly to the filing of charges against several people, said the project director of one of the suppliers of the allegedly overpriced Asean Summit decorative lamps and streetlights.

Romy Fuentes of Fabmik Construction and Equipment Company yesterday said the Ombudsman fact-finding team would not have determined there was probable overpricing and collusion among public officials and suppliers had the Department of Public Works and Highways submitted all the documents related to the project and sufficiently explained it to the investigators.

Because of these failure, the Ombudsman decided to file charges against Mayor Thadeo Ouano of Mandaue City, Mayor Arturo Radaza of Lapulapu City, DPWH regional director Roberto Lala, assistant direcors Gloria Dindin and Marlina Alvizo, as well as several others, including Fabmik and another supplier, Gampik, Fuentes said.

Fuentes said DPWH officials failed to explain details of the project such as how the entire system works, leading investigators to considered only the lampposts in arriving at the conclusion that the project was overpriced.

He said the lamppost is only one aspect of the entire lighting system, insisting that the computation should not have been based on the number of lampposts installed but on the distance by linear meters.

" If they were only competent enough to handle the case it would have been a different finding, " Fuentes over radio station DYLA.

He said though that he could not blame the DPWH entirely because it does not have the technical knowledge on how projects involving electricity are computed. He said the DPWH should not have been the agency tasked to implement the project but the National Transmission Company.

Fuentes said the anti-graft investigators should have also consulted Transco officials or even officials from the Visayan Electric Company.

While Fuentes insisted there was no overpricing, he refused to comment on the findings that there was clear collusion between officials and private respondents.

Fuentes said officials from his Manila office has issued a gag order against him regarding the controversy and that he was allegedly reprimanded for his previous interviews.

Others who were charges were DPWH maintenance division chief Pureza Fernandez and her assistant Cresencio Bagolor. Mandaue City and Lapulapu City engineers Hidelisa Latonio and Julito Cuizon and their subordinates Mario Gerolaga, Alfredo Sanchez, Rosalina Denque, Gregorio Omo, Fernando Tagaan Jr. and Rogelio Veloso were also sued.

Members of the bids and awards committee composed of lawyer Augustinito Hermoso, Luis Galang, Restituto Diano and Buenventura Pajo were similarly indicted.

On top of the criminal charges for graft and corruption against all the public officials involved, they are also facing administrative charges for dishonesty and grave misconduct.

While Ombudsman investigators found that the lamps installed in Cebu City were also overpriced, Mayor Tomas Osmena was spared the charges because there was no showing he and his officials were involved in any collusion.

Investigators also found that only Mandaue and Lapulapu prepared the program of works and estimates.

Indications of collusion surfaced when investigators found that Lapulapu and Mandaue officials submitted documents that matched the bid proposals of the suppliers.

Despite the findings, Lapulapu City attorney Joseph Vincent Lim said there was no basis to include Lapulapu City officials because it was a national project and they were only asked to sign the program of work that was already prepared by the DPWH.

Ouano, on the other hand, said their preparation of the program of work was only a budgetary requirement and that even this was changed by DPWH officials.

Ouano said his inclusion in the case is politically motivated and suspects Osmena is behind it.

In the program of work prepared by Mandaue City the streetlighting facilities were overpriced by P65,000 to as much as P85,000 each pole. Import documents obtained by investigators from the Bureau of Customs show the single arm streetlights only cost P7,536.96 each while the double-arm lamps cost P8,121.20 each. The triple-arm lamps only cost P9,523.37 each.

However, they were procured at P72,500, P85,500 and P95,000, respectively.

The apex type lamps were also overpriced by as much as P43, 262.21 each. Bought for P6,737.79 each, the DPWH quoted them at P50,000 each.

The dome lamps were overpriced by P38,250 each. Available for P11,700, they were bought for P50,000 as quoted by DPWH and local officials.

The DPWH installed a total of 1,860 streetlights and decorative lamps along the ceremonial route of Asean dignitaries from Cebu City to Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu.

Meanwhile, the Dilaab Foundation headed by Fr. Carmelo Diola is supporting the Ombudsman recommendation seeking the preventive suspension of public officials implicated in the mess.

Diola said the case should proceed as quickly as possible to separate the innocent from the guilty.

" We ask that all leads be explored so as to determine the full content of the tentacles of corruption, " he said. ( With Jasmin Uy/JST )