PLO puts to rest 'dummy' issue
'Not enough evidence,' probe team says
By Florence F. Hibionada
Correspondent
Much ado about nothing.
Such summed up the ten-day fact-finding probe conducted on the controversial 'dummy' issue faced by a top governor's aide.
In a five-page committee report, the governor's legal team concluded its investigation "for the purpose of shedding light on the media fracas ignited by one Niel Jimena who tagged himself as "dummy" of Provincial Adminstrator Manuel P. Mejorada in a quarrying business."
Chaired by Provincial Legal Office (PLO) chief, lawyer Salvador Cabaluna III, the probe team recognized its inability to find anything substantial.
"From the very limited data submitted by resource persons Ms. Soledad Sucaldito and Mr. Manuel Mejorada, we find scant evidence pointing to any anomaly in the grant of quarry permits or their transfer to a third party," the fact-finding report stated. "Stated otherwise, we have insufficient basis to jump to the conclusion that a quarry permittee is actually a dummy of a provincial official, to be more specific, that Niel "Lito" Jimena is a minion of Mr. Mejorada, that is fronting as quarrying permittee when in fact, he's only serving as cover for the real operator hiding backstage."
As such, Cabaluna along with two other committee members ruled, "So far, data on hand cannot reach with conclusion that somebody's head should roll. We have no choice but satisfy ourselves with the finding that there is very slim shred of light pinning down anybody, much less insist on a dummy-principal tie-up between Jimena and Mejorada."
A slightly different tone though on Mejorada's admission of a direct deal with businessman James Ang, operator of a rock crusher in Barangay Duyan-Duyan, Sta. Barbara, Iloilo.
"The only question we want to raise is that why has Provincial Administrator Manuel Mejorada entered into a business deal which might involve his official function because the very nature of his business relationship with James Ang involves quarry products," the committee stated. "While we have no evidence showing that Mr. Mejorada did throw his weight around in facilitating the processing of quarrying applications, nor had he intervened using official function in favor of a select group of individuals, he should have refrained from entering into a business relationship with James Ang."
The ten-day investigation got Mejorada's admission of said "direct deal" that had the Provincial Administrator as "middleman."
"Mejorada further told this Committee that he got paid by Ang, as commission, P10 for every cubic meter delivered to the latter by the truckers. He had no idea where the truckers obtained the sand and gravel and all he knew was that, they bought materials from different quarry permittees," the report continued. ""Helping him in that deal with Ang was Jimena, as business partner, specifically "runner" who collected his commission from Ang."
Yet the "business partnership" has since been dissolved following the end of the Mejorada-Jimena relationship that turned sour.
"While Mejorada's hand remains clean, his involvement - that he himself admitted - in the quarrying business though indirect, inevitably casts doubt on the good name of the Office of the Governor. His name might be clean but the aftermath of the brouhaha has tainted it and along with it, te reputation of the provincial government," the PLO probe team concluded. "He should be reminded to refrain from engaging in a similar activity so as to be above suspicion."
|
