After COA didn't name Ouano, et al: Lawyer wants Ebdane probed

CEBU, Philippines – Any reinvestigation of the controversial lamppost issue should include higher national government officials such as DPWH Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane who appear to have been conveniently excluded from the issue even if the Asean Summit during which the lampposts were used was a national project.

This was the call yesterday of Gloria Lastimosa Dalawampu, one of the lawyers of Mandaue City officials indicted in the case arising from the Philippines’ hosting of the 12th Asean Summit in Cebu in January 2007.

Dalawampu, who represents former Mandaue City mayor Thadeo Ouano and city engineers Hidelisa Latonio and Gregorio Omo, said she will soon file a motion with the Office of the Ombudsman, which is now reinvestigating the case, asking it to include officials in Manila who have been excluded from the case.

The Office of the Ombudsman itself withdrew the case it filed with the Sandiganbayan for lack of evidence and is reinvestigating the same with a mind to include as new evidence a report by the Commission on Audit that found the P365 million spent for the purchase of the lampposts to be overpriced.

Dalawampu assailed the Ombudsman reinvestigation as being selective in that it focuses only on local officials and seems to spare higher national government officials who were the ones who had overall control over the project.

The lawyer said the local officials implicated in the case did not have anything to do with anything in the lamppost purchase contract.

She described the original investigation which found the decorative lampposts to be overpriced as a sham, saying that at the time the Ombudsman made that determination, the COA had not rendered any report yet, making the Ombudsman findings baseless and premature.

Dalawampu said the original Ombudsman investigation was not thorough because it focused only on local officials of the cities of Mandaue and LapuLapu and the local offices of the DPWH while sparing from scrutiny those who truly had a say in the project, meaning the higher national government officials.

She said her clients never had any participation in the contract. They were not the signatories and did not have any hand in the bidding, which was where the prices were sealed. Yet they were the only ones indicted by the anti-graft office, to the utter exclusion of everybody who truly had a hand in the contract.

Dalawampu said the COA report finding overpricing of the lampposts never even mentioned Ouano, Omo and Latonio and the rest of the Mandaue officials in it. And yet they were instead the only ones who were charged with graft before the Sandiganbayan by the Ombudsman.

Dalawampu said not a single DPWH official from Manila who clearly participated in the project was ever investigated. She said that if ever regional officials of DPWH signed the contract with the suppliers of the lampposts, it was because DPWH Manila delegated the authority to them.

Dalawampu said it was Ebdane who delegated the authority to his regional officials and therefore should be included in the reinvestigation.

“Why can they not question the officials from Manila. Are they not being unfair?,” Dalawampu said.     

Aside from asking the Ombudsman to include Ebdane and other DPWH Manila officials in the investigation, Dalawampu is also eyeing a petition for certiorari before the Supreme Court over the dismissal of her motion to quash the information against Omo and Latonio.

The Sandiganbayan fourth and second divisions dismissed her motion to quash on the ground that the information has already been withdrawn by the Ombudsman for reinvestigation.

Dalawampu said this is unfair to Omo and Latonio because they were not originally included in the indictment. Their names were only added later.

Dalawampu also assailed the reinvestigation as improper considering that her clients were never made to undergo a regular preliminary investigation.

Aside from Ouano, Latonio and Omo, engineers Mario Gerolaga, Alfredo Sanchez Jr. and Rosalina Denque all of Mandaue City were also among the accused, together with Lapulapu City Mayor Arturo Radaza, Fernando Tagaan Jr. and Rogelio Veloso of that city.

Former Department of Public Works and Highways regional director Robert Lala and seven other officials were likewise impleaded in the graft charges. (/JST)  (THE FREEMAN)