IN OUR column yesterday, we predicted that a different scenario was going to unfold in the TriCom hearing of the House of Representatives on the anomalous anti-flood control projects.
Our prediction came as an offshoot of the disclosure by the Discaya couple, owners of nine contracting companies that are now the center of investigation by both the Senate and the Lower House.
In the Senate hearing the other day, the Discayas revealed several names of House members who they claimed to have received kickback money in hundreds of millions of pesos. In that bold disclosure of the names of Congressmen, including House Speaker Martin Romualdez, as well as top officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), never did the couple mention the names of even just a single senator to have been involved.
But in yesterday’s hearing by the TriCom House committee, both contractors, Curee Discaya and Bulacan District Engineer Brice Hernandez, presented a more “upgraded” revelation. Hernandez, initially hesitant, eventually named Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Joel Villanueva as having poured in his engineering district in Bulacan huge amount of funds for flood control projects.
According to Hernandez Estrada poured in through insertions a total of P350 million in flood control projects. Senator Villanueva, though, was able to bring in similar projects in his district in Bulacan with a total budget of P650 million.
After getting the assurance of the Committee that he will be “custodied” for the safety of his life and that of his family, Hernandez proceeded to mention that the proponent Senators were allocated a 30 percent commission. Or, to be blunt about it, kickback money. And the district engineer added that when the projects were supposed to be finished and paid by the DPWH, the contractor delivered the money at one time, amounting to P245 million, in boxes to his former superior, then District Engineer Alcantara, through his office.
On the other hand, Curee Discaya was trapped by one word he used in his sworn affidavit submitted to the Senate and then to the House. The word in Pilipino, iilan, refers to the members of the House whom he named to have benefited in his contracts with the DPWH.
His being put to a compromise happened when he was asked by Partylist Congresswoman Laila De Lima if there are still other House members who have been involved, but he has yet to name. De Lima made use of her observation on the word “Iilan” as taken to mean there are still other Congressmen whom the husband of Discaya did not include among those he named.
Again, in their apparent efforts to appear honest, in what the two “resource” persons said, they invoke the phrase “We fear for our personal safety and that of the members of our family.”
Personally, however, we have a different take on these two diverse scenarios in the Senate and House hearings. Now that the web of corruption perpetuated by a well-disguised syndicate composed of some lawmakers, DPWH officials, and contractors is getting exposed and investigated with a degree of seriousness, the “disadvantaged” contractors would rather involve every one of the corruption “stakeholders” rather than getting passed over.
In other words, the contractors, and perhaps with the instigation of some DPWH officials named in the controversy, “Damay damay na lang.”
And we can only thank that no one among those congressmen mentioned by the Discayas was from the Davao Region and that there was only one from Mindanao, from Zamboanga Sibugay.
What could have been the reason? Certainly, there are flood control projects funded nationally in all provinces and cities of the Davao Region. Therefore, the possibility is that the DPWH people and the contractors were able to undertake the flood control projects according to their specifications. And the contractors are all based locally and not those involved in the graft-ridden projects in Luzon and the Visayas.
And let all of us be reminded that the DPWH in the Region, the proponent lawmakers, and the local government officials, all of them with excellent working relations with each other, may have their own “favored” contractors that they can negotiate to be “sharing” in the opportunities to transact with the DPWH.
