People behind the P130M housing project mess still free
It has been four years since the city's multi-million housing scam was brought to public attention yet nobody was made answerable to the anomaly. Sadly, however, we continue to suffer the burden of paying the loan for the project which has become a white elephant.
The socialized housing project for city government employees was conceptualized during the time of former Mayor Mansueto Malabor. The contract for the housing project was approved before Malabor ended his term in 2001. Everything from the loan to the project design was approved during Malabor's time.
Malabor and his successor Mayor Jerry Treñas were former political allies but eventually they parted ways.
The ambitious project was funded through a bond flotation scheme, in which, P5 million of the P130 million reportedly went to the processor. There were also allegations that the release of the fund was hastened since it was used as campaign kitty of a certain political group in 2001 election.
Treñas eventually won as city mayor, taking over the responsibility of implementing the housing project. In the later part of 2002, however, Rudy Gonzales, a subcontractor of the Ace Builders and Enterprise (ABE) spilled the beans over the use of substandard materials at the housing project site after the latter failed to pay him of his contracted work.
With Gonzales' declaration, the Sangguniang Panlungsod through former Vice Mayor Victor Facultad conducted an investigation on the alleged anomaly. The council's committee on legal matters then chaired by now Rep. Raul Gonzalez, Jr. spearheaded the inquiry.
Meantime, the construction at the project site stopped, leaving the partially completed housing units vulnerable to the elements.
After countless arguments and debates, the committee came up with a recommendation indicating the linkage between former and previous sets of councilors in the controversy.
But, as expected, the recommendation fell on deaf ears.
Nevertheless, the committee on legal matters submitted a copy of their committee report to the Ombudsman Visayas.
On its part, the Ombudsman Visayas asked the councilors allegedly involved in the anomalous transaction to submit their counter-affidavits. In which they also complied.
However, after the submission of the councilors' counter-affidavits nothing was heard from the Ombudsman, though there were already reports that the Ombudsman found merits on the committee's report and recommended that charges be filed before the Sandiganbayan.
Just recently, Ombudsman for Visayas Virginia Palanca-Santiago warned Mayor Treñas not to pay the contractor the alleged remaining balance of P14 million as recommended by the Commission on Audit (COA). Santiago even asked to have a meeting with the mayor and the members of the COA evaluation team.
Observers were even surprised when during the last committee hearing on the city's plan to pay the said remaining balance last Tuesday ABE's Alex Trinidad through his lawyer threatened to sue city officials if they are not paid the amount due them.
It was learned that as early as 2003, ABE had terminated its contract with the city government after the latter failed to pay the fourth billing amounting to some P4 million.
The city government, on the other hand, did not take any legal moves against the contractor although it was clear that it used substandard materials in the project. The City Legal Office was then headed by now Councilor Jose Espinosa III.
Former City Councilor Vicente Gengos, Jr. had filed five resolutions, approved by the city council, pushing for the rescission of the contract but it was simply ignored by the chief executive.
As if the controversy is not yet enough, The Philippine Veterans Bank recently disclosed that it released a total of P80 million for the housing project. But based in the COA evaluation the city spent P60 million for the project so far. A question is now raised as to where the P20 million went.
Furthermore, the contracted price for the housing project was also revised from P125 million to P137,787,499.56 without the approval of the Sangguniang Panglungsod.
Apparently, with the rate things are going there is no end in sight yet with regard to the saga of the housing scam controversy.