12th ASEAN Summit

TWO cases regarding the controversial cost of the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) construction will be filed at the office of the Ombudsman Visayas on Monday.

Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia would file criminal and administrative charges against acting Deputy Ombudsman for the Visayas Virginia Palanca-Santiago for allegedly putting her name in a bad light in the investigation of the alleged overpriced CICC project.

While private contractor Crisologo Saavedra would be filing a case of plunder against Governor Garcia, Vice Governor Gregorio Sanchez Jr., architect Manuel Guanzon, all members of the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC), provincial treasurer and others who were involved in the construction of the CICC.

The governor said she would also ask for Santiago to inhibit from the CICC investigation as she is already showing bias and partiality in the fact-finding inquiry.

Garcia decided to sue Santiago after she was quoted in a report saying, “nakabantay na sila (they have noticed)” of their supposed discreet fact-finding investigation of the complaint lodged by whistle blower Saavedra.

“It's quite obvious that she (Santiago) prejudged me,” Garcia said.

The governor would ask for Santiago to be placed under preventive suspension as well.

Lawyer Pablo John Garcia said for the criminal aspect, Santiago violated section 3a and 3k of the anti-graft and corrupt practices act for manifesting partiality, which caused undue injury to the governor.

For the administrative aspect, Pablo John said the statement of Santiago to the media also violated administrative order No. 7 of the rules and procedure of the Office of the Ombudsman which provides, “no publicity shall be made of matters which may adversely affect national security or public interest, prejudice disposition of the case or unduly expose persons complained against to ridicule or public censure.”

He added Santiago also committed grave abuse of authority, grave misconduct and dereliction of duties and accused her of “playing politics” with her CICC investigation.

Pablo John questioned Santiago's fast action in resolving the CICC controversy in the height of election campaign, while a number of other controversial cases filed at the anti-graft office more than two years ago are still awaiting resolution.

He cited the P26.5-million Girl Scouts of the Philippines (GSP) fund that was placed in the personal account of 4th district Rep. Clavel Asas-Martinez; the P5-million fertilizer fund put at the behest of 3rd district Rep. Antonio Yapha Jr.; and the bogus foundation Perdido Lex.

He said Ombudsman-Manila should appoint a non-Cebuano who is not involved in Cebu politics to handle the investigation.

Cebu Daily News tried to contact Santiago several times to get her side but failed to get in touch with her.

But in a prior interview, the GSP and the Perdido Lex issues were already resolved by the Ombudsman-Visayas. They are just waiting for Ombudsman-Manila to approve their resolution since the power of the deputy Ombudsman to approve or disapprove resolutions from the local investigators was removed by Ombudsman Merceditas Guttierez when she assumed office.

Also, Santiago in an earlier interview said they were not investigating the alleged fertilizer scam anymore because the Congress was already investigating it.

Meanwhile, Governor Garcia admitted that Karen Fiel Tio, the wife of contractor Clint Tio, of Diamond Interior, supplier of the metal cladding in the construction of the CICC, is her first cousin.

But, she clarified that her relationship to Karen is not sanctioned by the implementing rules and regulations of Republic Act 9184, particularly section 47 (disclosure of relations) as her relationship with Karen is already on the fourth civil degree.

She said the law states that the bidder should “not be related to the head of the procuring entity by consanguinity or affinity up to the third civil degree.”

Garcia said the Diamond Interior won the bidding.

Karen presented to reporters documents showing the firm was the winning bidder as supplier of cladding materials for the CICC.

Saavedra, on the other hand, said there was a clear overpricing of the CICC project after he was able to get all the documents including the vouchers and purchase orders (PO’s) signed by the governor.

“The overpriced is above P50-million, so it’s already a plunder. I am not saying that the governor made money there but there is more than P50-million that was wasted and and we don’t know where it went to,” Saavedra said.

Governor Garcia is set to make a presentation of the CICC expenses on May 3.

Saavedra said there was an overpricing of the project through the split of contracts and PO’s and negotiated contracts.

While there was bidding of the substructure, he alleged that the amount for the superstructure was falsified into similar amount of the substructure, which is over PP59-million, to justify the negotiated contracts.

The superstructure was supposed to reach up to P300 million, he said.

“The price of the project from supposedly P450 million went up to almost P650 million, because the system of the bidding was a splitting of the purchase order and the contracts. There was an excessive and no control of the costing because there was no bidding. They falsified the amount of the superstructure so that it will justify their negotiation, then they will deliver almost P300-million worth of superstructure steel on a negotiated contract, then they went into negotiated contracts with the different contractors,” Saavedra explained.

He added in that kind of transaction, there is always a hundred percent possibility of overpricing because there is no competition.

Saavedra said the governor's plan of presenting the expenses is useless and self-serving and that if she can present documents, they are sure to be “doctored”.

“She was just forced to come out because I already got documents from her office. To save face she will do it but that will not serve the purpose. The best thing to do is for her to submit all the documents to the Ombudsman, including the supporting documents if she is honest,” Saavedra said.

But Saavedra believes that Garcia would no longer go ahead with the presentation on May 3 after he files the plunder charges.