A BIG can of worms is about to be opened, or a bombshell is about to explode as our “man on horseback” Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon is set to investigate, stop payment and suspend officials of his beleaguered Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) district office linked to the P7.304-billion infrastructure mess in Antique.
Who benefited? Who is accountable? Who will restore the damage done to our rivers, farmlands and the coasts?
These are probing questions raised by the Amlig Antique Alliance, a broad coalition of civil society organizations, academic institutions and church-based groups in the province with a catchy slogan, “Where the mountains meet the sky.”
Amlig has sought Dizon’s action for a department-level investigation so that public funds are secured and the guilty parties who have the impunity to rape the mountains of Antique and steal public funds through rigged biddings are charged and jailed.
Repeatedly ignoring environmental laws before the altar of progress and leaving a trail of silted rivers, buried farmlands, destabilized slopes and poisoned waterways in the hinterlands of the Central Panay Mountain Range are acts that invite hate, contempt, outrage, obloquy.
These cases are no different from the controversial flood control scams, where government projects are either missing despite being reported already completed or poorly implemented through the use of substandard construction materials and supplies.
By the way, Antique is known as the province of Sen. Loren Legarda, a certified climate change advocate; her younger brother AA Legarda is a second-termer congressman of the lone district. Incumbent Antique Gov. Paulo Javier is a known Legarda political ally.
Lawyer Rolly Pedrina, Amlig chairman and convenor of the Amlig Antique Alliance, together with Fr. Edione Febrero, co-convenor, identified the six major infrastructure projects in question as the following:
– P3.577 billion Laua-an (Antique)–Tapaz (Capiz) Road.
– P1.507 billion San Jose Coastal Road in San Jose de Buenavista, Antique.
– P1.163 billion Panay East-West Lateral Road Valderrama (Antique)–Lambunao (Iloilo).
– P447 million Pandaan (Antique)–Ibajay (Aklan) Road.
– P381.441 million Bugo-Gen. Fullon Road, San Remigio, Antique.
– P227.547 million Sabang West Road, Bugasong, Antique.
Only two construction firms have divided between themselves the 92 contracts covering these six major infrastructure projects, if only to underscore the high probability of rigged biddings in favor of handpicked contractors.
These are Sunwest Construction and Development Corp. of fugitive ex-congressman Elizaldy “Zaldy” Co (Ako Bicol Party-list) and IBC International Builders Corp. of Iloilo of businessman Alfonso Tan, a close ally and kin of Uswag Ilongo Party-list Rep. Jojo Ang, one of the contractors now under investigation.
I have always wondered why people have no qualms about committing hardcore anomalies just to amass wealth at the expense of the poor, this time in the upland barangay of Antique, where many municipalities still face stubborn nutrition and rural poverty pockets despite years of heavy public spending running into billions of pesos.
Now let’s delve deeper into the accusations of Amlig Antique:
1. Environmental law violations — The projects are being implemented without valid environmental compliance certificates (ECCs) or certificates of noncoverage (CNCs) such as in the case of the PEWLR in Valderrama, where no penalties were slapped to erring contractors and no cases were filed after the ECCs and CNCs were revoked by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
2. Illegal use of public lands — Construction in forest lands, foreshore areas and mangroves are without gratuitous special use permits, foreshore lease agreement or equivalent tenurial authority. Still no penalties and no cases were imposed despite prevalent illegal occupation of inalienable land by the contractor.
3. Questionable public spending — There exists violations of Presidential Decree 1445 and Republic Act 9184 as disbursements by the DPWH district in San Jose are without legal prerequisites, marred by contract segmentation and repeated awards to the same contractor. A case of potential ghost projects exists.
4. Regulatory findings exist-no enforcement — The Environmental Management Bureau issued notices of violations and revoked permits; DENR issued show cause orders; Penro/Cenro issued cease and desist orders to the construction of the San Jose Seawall and the Pandan-Ibajay Road, yet construction continued, no penalties were imposed and no administrative or criminal cases were field in court.
So brazen are the abuses of DPWH officials in cahoots with manipulative contractors that in one instance a contract for the construction of a barangay road was already awarded before the publication of the bidding. In another setting, a 650-meter dirt road cost the government P133 million, or roughly P175,000 per linear meter.
These road opening or concreting projects were always lacking in feasibility studies or were considered not in the priority listing of the local government units. Despite being heavily budgeted, they did not pass the scrutiny of the Provincial Development Council or the Regional Development Council.
Next time, we will tackle issues related to various flood control projects implemented in the province of Antique that totaled more than P2.729 billion, beginning in 2021 to the present, and new road opening and concreting projects of about P1.031 billion or more.
Let me say this. I know that Secretary Dizon will not look the other way if only to investigate even smaller projects like a water supply system that had a budget of P10 million each. In Antique, there are more than 100 units built, but none has produced a single drop of water.
