Once more: What happened to the GSP scam?

At long last, after many years of silent suffering, our dynamic Lady Governor Gwen F. Garcia is taking on the big Three Oil Companies that are selling its fuel prices at an average of P5 to P8 more per liter than in gas stations in Luzon and in Mindanao. I noticed this last year when we brought our bikes to Cagayan de Oro, but due to other pressing matters, we failed to do a follow up on this issue. Well, Bless you Gov. Gwen for taking the cudgels for Cebuano motorists.

Gov. Gwen has a very strong ally in this fight with no less than our good friend Department of Justice Undersecretary Jose Vicente “Jovy” Salazar who heads the Task Force in the DOJ to look into irregularities of the Big 3 oil companies. To the oil companies, especially Chevron, Shell and Petron, it is high time you gave Cebuanos an explanation why Cebuanos are paying more for the same fuel you sell in Luzon or in Mindanao. I’m sure the PR agents of these oil companies can give us a breakdown of why this is happening, but their reasoning better be good because Cebuanos can be nasty if you give us nothing but a bull story!

* * *

It’s a good thing that I had so many other issues to write about, I wasn’t able to write about the front-page story of The Freeman last Monday that blared, “Thadeo Ouano Off in 3 Cases”. Well, it turned out that someone sent the wrong information to The Freeman which came up with another headline last Tuesday that blared, “Ouano, Radaza Not Off the Hook”. So rather than making a comment on the story last Monday, allow me to comment on the corrected story.

What we have now is a complete denial by Deputy Ombudsman for the Visayas Pelagio Apostol that the criminal cases against former Mandaue City Mayor Thadeo Ouano and Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Arturo Radaza were dismissed. So what was the report coming from the Ouano camp that three cases were already dismissed? Were these the same cases or not? Was this sheer disinformation that mislead the media? Perhaps we should dig deeper into what’s going on at the Office of the Ombudsman in the Visayas. For all we know someone may be acting as a mole there.

It’s bad enough that we are first-hand witnesses to the snail’s paced way that the Ombudsman is handling the so-called Lamppost Scam, they had to bungle or confuse the people further by the erroneous reports that we are getting from their office. It’s about time that the Office of the Ombudsman in the Visayas clean their act. The people only want see justice done and I shudder to think what would happen if we cannot get justice anymore from our legal system.

Still on another case of injustice. I would like to know from the Office of the Ombudsman on the status of the three counts of malversation of public funds filed against former Rep. Clavel Asas Martinez and eight others for the celebrated P26.5 million Girl Scouts of the Philippines (GSP) Scam? I recall that then Deputy Ombudsman Primo Miro approved the final evaluation of Director Virginia Santiago recommending that the Committee on Ethics of the House of Representatives be informed of the issue, as if Congress knows how to take punitive measures against its own members? Just look where the Senate is headed with their complaints against former Sen. President Manny Villar.

Just to refresh our readers, as this case has been in a Legal Coma for at least five years now. This scam centered on how then Rep. Martinez was able to disburse some P26.5 million from her Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) which allegedly went into her personal bank account by using the GSP as the conduit in the years 2002 and 2003.

Rep. Martinez confirmed that she released P11.5 million from her PDAF to the Municipality of Bogo through the GSP and the money was transferred to her bank and then to the town’s treasury, supposedly to expedite the procedure, though she insisted that no money was lost in the transaction.

But Director Virginia Santiago’s reply to that statement was, “The evidence clearly established that Martinez performed acts through evident bad faith and manifest partially that result in or caused undue injury to the government in the total amount of P26.5 million.” Since Mr. Apostol is new in Cebu, then he has nothing to fear when we ask him, what is the status of this particular case? If I know Virginia Santiago, she’s a person of integrity and hasn’t changed her story about this case. So why are we kept in a cliff-hanger situation? Why can’t the Ombudsman already file this case in court? This is a very easy case to handle as it has a paper trail, so what more evidence do they need to start prosecuting this case?