House to summon Public Works officials in flood control fund scam
Credit to Author: GLEE JALEA| Date: Sun, 06 Jan 2019 13:40:39 +0000
SOME senior officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) will be summoned to the House of Representatives to shed light on the alleged conspiracy between the agency and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) in the alleged illegal disbursement of funds for flood control projects, a top official of the House of Representatives said on Sunday.
Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr. said the House Committee on Rules would subpoena Ma. Catalina Cabral, undersecretary for planning and PPP; Rafael “Pye” Yabut, senior undersecretary for regional operations in Luzon; and Patrick Gatan, project director of flood control management cluster.
A subpoena duces tecum would also be issued for the release of DPWH official documents and transaction records related to flood control projects implemented from 2017 to 2018.
“The testimonies from the DPWH regional office and district offices in Bicol were very clear. Top DPWH officials are ignoring Department Order No. 23 to bypass strict requirements for flood control projects,” said Andaya.
The subpoenas are part of an ongoing investigation into the alleged conspiracy between the DPWH and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) involving the alleged illegal disbursement of funds for flood control projects that have gone to the Aremar Construction Corp. owned by Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno’s in-laws.
“Whoever is downloading these instructions to the DPWH district engineers is possibly the one in cahoots with Secretary Diokno. These flood control projects submitted by the district engineers are then used to come up with a list of projects for approval by Secretary Diokno,” he said.
Andaya, who led the committee hearing with DPWH and DBM Region 5 officials last January 3 in Naga City, Camarines Sur, said that DPWH officials behind the flood control fund scam and who could have benefitted from Aremar through billions of projects devoted to Casiguran and other parts of Sorsogon province would be identified.
The Hamors, who own Aremar, are in-laws of Diokno.
The House has invited company president Maria Minez Hamor, stockholder Casiguran Mayor Edwin Hamor, Sorsogon Vice Governor Esther Hamor, incorporator Romeo “Jojo” Sicat Jr., and his wife, Charlotte Justine Sicat, also the daughter of Diokno.
Andaya said that DPWH Secretary Mark Villar may have been “blind-sided” on the matter.
“I doubt if Secretary Villar is in the loop with this modus operandi. Posibleng blind-sided siya ng mga DPWH officials na involved sa flood control scam. (He is possibly blind-sided by some DPWH officials involved in the flood control scam. We hope he can help us get to the bottom of this),” Andaya said.
One of the issues uncovered during the previous hearing was the lack of a master plan for flood control projects in Sorsogon.
The House panel had also questioned the use of at least eight “dummy accounts” allegedly by Aremar to benefit from winning bidders with over P50 million worth of shares.
“It clearly showed in the hearing: there is no master plan for flood control projects in Sorsogon. Who then included the flood control projects in the DPWH budget that went to [the] in-laws of Secretary Diokno? We will find that out in the next hearing,” Andaya said.
In last December’s “question hour,” Diokno revealed that that the controversial P51.792 billion initially allocated for projects of the DPWH actually amounted to P75 billion, which was part of the “President’s budget.”
The House leadership previously said that some P10 billion worth of funds under the DPWH was allocated to Sorsogon for 2019 alone. The province also received P6 billion for infrastructure projects under the proposed national budget.
Aremar previously said that Andaya was only “employing scare tactics” in dragging the Hamors into the picture because of their accidental relation by affinity to Diokno.
“It seems that the good congressman is trying to employ scare tactics on my client who has not committed anything wrong except that he has an accidental relation by affinity to his real target – Secretary Ben Diokno,” the Hamors’ camp said.
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