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CEBU CITY: Two Cebuano members of the House of
Representatives have called on the Office of the Ombudsman to
conduct a wider probe on the alleged overpriced lampposts and
streetlights worth P365.8 million bought for the 12th Asean Summit
in Cebu.
The investigation of the
anti-graft office already resulted in the imposition of a six-month
preventive suspension on Mayor Thadeo Ouano of Mandaue City and
Mayor Arturo Radaza of Lapu-Lapu City and 17 other officials in both
cities and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez in
Manila approved the recommendation of the Deputy Ombudsman for the
Visayas for the preventive suspension of the 19 officials.
But Reps. Antonio Yapha (Cebu,
Third District) and Clavel Asas-Martinez (Cebu, Fourth District),
consider it “unfair” that only local officials are being
prosecuted for the purchase, when the project came from the national
government.
Martinez said the filing of
criminal and administrative charges was based on the preliminary
findings of the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas.
Being summary in nature, she
said, it’s findings cannot be “totally conclusive.”
”It was just based on a
possibility that there was a criminal offense and it is unfair that
only two mayors got hit when they had no full and total control over
the project, they were only at the receiving end,” she said.
With this, Yapha and Martinez
said it is best for the antigraft body to conduct a wider probe on
the anomaly and include those responsible from “top to bottom and
not just the bottom.”
Former DPWH secretary Hermogenes
Ebdane must be included, Martinez said.
”Fair is fair. With this
sweeping conclusion and findings, this persecutes Cebuanos. What we
are saying here is that regardless of whether one is our partymate
or not, we don’t want anyone to trample on Cebu,” she said.
Yapha and Martinez, who are on
their third and last term in the House, are running for Cebu
governor and vice-governor, respectively, against reelectionist
Governor Gwendolyn Garcia and Vice-Governor Gregorio Sanchez.
Ouano is supporting Garcia and
Sanchez while Radaza is an ally of Yapha and Martinez.
About 1,060 decorative street
lamps and 450 streetlights of single-arm, double-arm and triple-arm
models were installed between November and December last year along
the ceremonial route where vehicles of Asean delegates passed in the
cities of Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu.
The total budget for the project
was P365,870,000.
--PNA
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