Capitol dads set to meet on Suplico’s road scam expose’
Members of the 9th Iloilo Sanggunian Panlalawigan (SP) are set to meet Tuesday on the matter of legislative inquiry of the San Dionisio road scam.
With the Committee on Infrastructure as lead, Second District Board Member June Mondejar called for an executive conference to lay down the parameters of the investigation. Providing back-up is the Committee on Justice, Good Government and Human Rights with the probe request pushed by Vice Governor Rolex Suplico.
A story that was “one for the books” and a “strange case” of a brand new road called the Vice Governor in a privilege speech. The speech prompted the investigation referred to Mondejar’s committee.
Calling it a “road scam,” Suplico lambasted last week the outcome of construction works in San Dionisio town costing about P10 million.
“I wish to call your attention to the strange case of the brand-new, 0.8-kilometer concrete road project, costing P10 million, more or less, funded by the national government, in Brgy. Pase and Brgy. Poblacion in San Dionisio in Northern Iloilo. According to the residents in the area, the alleged contractor, Mrs. Thelma “Bebit” Zerrudo, proprietor of the TRZ Finance Corporation based in Sara, started road works construction in September 2008. This, they said, was completed in May 2009. I always pass this road from time to time. It is a major national arterial road. It connects the town proper of San Dionisio to the Iloilo-East Coast Capiz Road and then to the northern towns of the 5th District. I have received numerous complaints from concerned citizens as well as local officials that this brand-new concrete road has exhibited highly unusual premature defects,” Suplico began.
“The start of the project is located beside the San Dionisio Central Elementary School. A tarpaulin with a picture of Rep. Junjun Tupas and San Dionisio Mayor Pio Villanueva stands there. Then we went along the newly-built concrete road. It has obvious cracks in all directions, including vertical and horizontal cracks. These cracks were very noticeable on the road surface from the start until the end of the project. It has visible scaling or pulverization problems. These defects indicate, among others, road base failure, lack of binder materials, and substandard concrete mixture. Finally, another tarpaulin with the picture of Rep. Tupas stands at the end of the project near the gate of the Nicomedes Tubar National High School.”
Suplico said he was told that the cracks will be taken cared of by injecting epoxy and then paved anew.
“On June 23, 2009, the Sangguniang Panlalawigan held its first out-of-town session in Batad followed by the second hearing by the Committee on Economic Affairs and Investments on the Artech-ILECO III contract. After the hearing, I passed by San Dionisio to check again the road’s defects on my way back to Iloilo City. I noticed that the cracks and deterioration have worsened. The project has 370 concrete spans on both lanes, of which 134 spans exhibited cracks and scalings. This means that around 46% of the concrete road project is defective. On this occasion, I was interviewed. And I gave my views on this anomalous concrete road project,” Suplico said. “...In fact, the concrete pavement looks like a huge jigsaw puzzle. I see no end to the worsening deterioration of this road project.”
As a matter of recourse, Suplico called for the conduct of investigation “into the construction of this anomalous concrete road section.”