Pasay government Christmas gifts grossly overpriced?

Groceries in the 70,000 Christmas packages distributed by the Pasay City government to the city’s poor last Christmas were allegedly overpriced.

Documents obtained by The STAR showed that most of the canned goods such as corned beef, tuna and fruit cocktail were priced double and in some cases, more than double, the prevailing market prices.

It was learned that the 70,000 plastic bags that bore the logo of President Joseph Ejercito Estrada and Mayor Wencesiao "Peewee" Trinidad, which contained the groceries, cost P18 each.

The purchase of the giveaways came under scrutiny after reports came out that a city cashier had surfaced to claim that the city government had engaged in "graft practices" to bribe government auditors and city councilors to buy their silence on certain anomalous city transactions last Christmas.

Cashier Lourdes Rafols had reportedly executed an affidavit to be submitted to the National Bureau of Investigation alleging that P400,000 was given to an employee of the local Commission on Audit and P1,000,000 was given to some "noisy councilors."

Trinidad, for his part, denied the allegations of Rafols. The mayor explained that Rafols may have resorted to making the false accusations to "cover up what she did."

Trinidad narrated that Rafols had gone into hiding after the discovery of P1 million missing from city funds in her custody.

A price list of the items included in the Christmas packages showed that the two kilos of rice cost P48; a kilo of white sugar P25; a can of sausages P33.55; a can of Blue Bay tuna P46.83; a 250 gram box of orange juice 35.53; a 25 gram of Blend 45 coffee P73.81; a 155 gram can of Swift corned beef P35.31; a 565 gram of Los Primos fruit cocktail P62.05; 300 milliliters of Blue Cow condensed milk P42.02; a 375 gram can of Swift luncheon meat P69.30; a 365 grams of Del Monte spaghetti meat sauce P67.43; and a kilo of Fiesta spaghetti sauce P53.13.

The purchase of the groceries for the packages was funded by a P115 million loan from the Philippine National Bank. – Rainier Allan Ronda