Rama sacks engineers found guilty of graft

CEBU, Philippines - Mayor Michael Rama has finally implemented the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas order dismissing from service three Cebu City engineers found liable for graft and corruption.

Assistant Cebu City Engineer June Nadine Sison and engineers Juanito Pua and Joel Pasatiempo of the Department of Engineering and Public Works (DEPW) had already received their dismissal orders last June 24.

Pua used to head the city’s construction division while Pasatiempo worked as project engineer.

Deputy Ombudsman for the Visayas Pelagio Apostol had concurred with the findings and recommendations of Graft Investigator Edsel Ensomo, who gave more weight to the claim of complainant Robert Montenegro, owner and manager of FE&A Construction Services.

In 2011 and 2012, FE&A was awarded the contracts to undertake various projects in Cebu City.  Montenegro said the three engineers usually demanded “dole outs” from him every time he won the project biddings.

He said the three city engineers had also requested him to allow them to subcontract some of his projects using a dummy.  When he refused to grant their request, the engineers allegedly suspended his project for the construction of stone masonry at Sitio Riverside in Barangay Pahina Central last January 2012.

Sison, Pua, and Pasatiempo allegedly also at one time approached the contractor and demanded to receive a new computer unit and a high-tech camera, which Montenegro said he refused to give because he has already given them several “incentives and monetary dole outs.”

Montenegro also said that when he requested the respondents to release his company “retention money,” or a deposit equivalent to 10 percent of the contract, on the road concreting with slope protection and drainage system project in Barangay Toong, the three engineers refused.

During the investigation, Montenegro said Pasatiempo demanded materials for the construction of his house while Pua allegedly demanded P18,000 worth of volleyball uniforms, P10,000 on May 20, 2011, and P20,000 three months after that.

Montenegro said Sison “unduly influenced” him to give the camera and the computer. He said “they were angry at me because I did not give them what they wanted.”

In their counter-affidavits, the three engineers said they refused to release the retention money because the Toong project had many defects and needed back jobs. 

Ensomo, though, noted that while the three engineers denied demanding a camera and a computer from the complainant, they failed to refute the allegation.

The graft investigator said they also did not contradict the claim that they demanded to subcontract Montenegro’s projects and likewise fell short in rebutting the claim that Pua received money from the complainant.

Ensomo described Montenegro’s testimony as “credible and sincere,” adding that filing of the complaint was right and proper to stop “respondents’ practice of solicitation in the exercise of their official functions.”

“In civil service, public servants must display at all times the highest sense of honesty and integrity,” read the anti-graft body’s decision.

Sison received the order dismissing him from service, but he made a marginal note in the one-page document, stating he did so “with much sadness” because he still has a pending motion for reconsideration questioning the decision.

“I still firmly maintain my innocence of the charges leveled against me by Montenegro,” he said.—/RHM (FREEMAN)