12th ASEAN Summit

CEBU CITY—The damage has been done.

Mandaue City Mayor Thadeo Ouano said there was not much he could say on what he said were politically motivated charges that lampposts installed in his city for the Asean summit were overpriced.

“The damage has been done already—the damage they have done to the city, the damage they have done to the province, even the entire country,” said Ouano.

He said he wasn’t planning to sue people who destroyed his reputation over the lamppost issue. “I leave it to God.”

He said he would just wait for the outcome of the case even as he continued to deny any involvement in the alleged overpricing of the lamppost project. In the meantime, he said he would help his son, who is seeking to replace him as mayor, in the campaign.

Investment impact

However, Ouano decried the negative impact of the controversy on Mandaue City’s investment potential.

While the Ombudsman said it does not consider the preventive suspension imposed on Ouano and 19 other local and public works and highways officials as a sanction, Ouano said the investors would look at it in a negative light.

Investors would now think twice before investing in Mandaue City.

The controversy had placed Mandaue City, the province of Cebu and the country in a bad light, Ouano said.

In his nine years of service as mayor, Ouano said he had worked hard to give Mandaue its own identity internationally.

He also reiterated his earlier claim that the allegation against him was politically motivated because it happened during election time.

Politics

Supporters of Ouano earlier said politicians out to take over the city government of Mandaue were behind the controversy over the lampposts.

Contractors that installed the lampposts denied the overpricing, saying detractors made wrong computations.

Because of his suspension, Mandaue City is now politically unstable, Ouano said.

Ouano was one of the 19 local and public work officials who suspended for six months in connection with the ongoing investigation of the alleged overpricing of the lamppost project.

Just last Friday, Alfredo Sanchez, a Mandaue city engineer implicated in the controversy, claimed that Ouano’s daughter-in-law Cheryl Ouano forced him to sign the program of works and estimate.

Cheryl reportedly received instructions from the mayor himself, Sanchez said in his affidavit submitted to the Ombudsman.