Quezon City fiscal junks bribery raps vs Yap in ice machine deal

MANILA, Philippines - The Quezon City prosecutors’ office has junked a complaint filed against Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap and a representative of a winning bidder in the government’s ice-making machine project.

In a resolution dated June 3, Assistant City Prosecutor Ronald Ancheta cited insufficiency of evidence in dismissing the case against Yap and Lawrence Tan Son for corruption of a public officer and direct filed by Peter Go Cheng.

“In the instant case, there is a dearth of evidence to prove that a gift is given or an offer was made by respondent Son to his co-respondent Yap to ensure that IRSSI (the company represented by Son) will win the bidding,” the resolution stated.

Cheng is the sales manager of Kolonwel Trading, while Son is a representative of winning bidder Integrated Refrigeration Systems and Services Inc.

In his complaint, Cheng claimed Son offered to pay Kolonwel P10 million “(in exchange) for our withdrawal of opposition to the award of the contract in favor of IRSSI.”

Cheng claimed the alleged offer was made during a meeting at a hotel’s business center on Oct. 21, 2009. He said he was angry at the offer made to him by Son and alleged that Yap arranged the meeting.

According to Cheng, Yap had allegedly earlier called him up on his cellular phone about his opposition to IRSSI’s having passed the eligibility screening by the National Agribusiness Corp.’s bids and awards committee.

Cheng claimed Yap wanted to arrange a meeting with IRSSI to settle the dispute and even allegedly brought up the idea of paying money to Kolonwel to end it. He claimed this phone call indicated that Yap was favoring IRSSI.