Conflicting views

Land Transportation Office (LTO) chief Assistant Secretary Virginia Torres appears to have a propensity to put her fingers where they don’t belong, or the tendency to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I’m already afraid that if she persisted in her indiscretion and recklessness in handling the agency’s affairs, she would get her comeuppance sooner than later.

This early in her stint at the transport licensing office, Torres is already besieged with administrative and graft charges, either of which could send her to jail for a long time.

Meantime, her seat at the LTO is becoming hotter by the day in the aftermath of what was largely perceived as forcible and illegal closure last Dec. 9 of an information technology facility owned and operated by Stradcom Corp., exclusive service provider of the transport licensing office.

It certainly looks like Torres has a lot of explaining to do about that incident which halted the LTO operations nationwide for at least six hours as warring camps within Stradcom were locked in a volatile stand-off situation that placed the LTO’s database in grave danger.

Torres’ first attempt to shed light on her reported complicity in the dawn siege of Stradcom’s IT offices located within the LTO compound along East Ave. in Quezon City wasn’t satisfactory, to say the least.

Some say that the incident report and film footage taken by a closed circuit television (CCTV) in the building did not support Torres’ press statements. The inconsistencies prompted Transportation Secretary Jose “Ping” de Jesus to ask the Department of Justice to step in for an impartial inquiry.

De Jesus was apprehensive that an internal probe might be misconstrued as biased and might lead to a whitewash considering that the LTO is an attached agency of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC).

If that’s not fair enough, I don’t know what is.

Anyway, the CCTV footage showed Torres and LTO head executive assistant Menelia Mortel standing in the façade of a building apparently somebody prior to the dawn raid on the IT offices. Succeeding film clips showed that the two ladies were not waiting for just one man, but a group of people identified only as the Sumbilla group. They then marched towards the IT building, escorted by several armed men.

At this point, let me explain that the so-called Sumbilla Group has locked horns with another Stradcom faction of majority stockholders headed by Cezar Quiambao, giving rise to several litigation cases that remained unresolved for some years now.

Torres and Mortel explained that Sumbilla et.al. merely paid them a courtesy call prior to the raid, and that their actions were meant to protect the integrity of the LTO database.

However, Quiambao and company viewed the films differently, alleging that it was an indisputable material evidence of a conspiracy between the LTO officials and his enemies.

Expectedly, Quiambao lodged charges against Torres, submitting the CCTV footages as among the prosecution’s pieces of evidence.

On the seeming complicity of Torres and Mortel in the unfortunate incident, several questions immediately come to mind.

Why were they at the LTO as early as 5 a.m.? Did they know beforehand that a raid would be conducted on the IT facility? If Torres had advance information about the raid, why did she allow it?

Why did she participate in the raid? Didn’t she know about the CCTVs in the building that would document her moves?

This is just but a sneak preview of how Torres and Mortel might be fried to a crisp by the prosecution lawyers on the witness stand.

Meanwhile, a transport group has also hailed Torres to the anti-graft court, alleging that she knowingly and unlawfully allowed a private company to continue transacting business with the LTO without a valid contract.

The Eastern Manila Transport Groups Inc., in a complaint reportedly filed before the Office of the Ombudsman, charged Torres with “sanctioning and tolerating” Amalgated Motors Philippines Inc. (AMPI) in supplying the LTO with driver’s license forms, although its contract with the LTO has already lapsed as early as 2002.

News reports had it that Torres even admitted that AMPI’s contract, worth P500 million yearly, had expired, but apparently made no move to appropriately address the irregularity.

AMPI leader Lamberto Vergara was quoted as saying that LTO assistant secretary Torres cannot hide behind the accusations of her predecessors on this issue considering that she continues to allow or tolerate operations of AMPI despite her knowledge that the latter has no contract with the LTO in violation of Republic Act no. 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act.

Vergara batted for the immediate suspension of Torres to “protect the safety and integrity” of vital documents including testimonies of witnesses to the anomalous transactions.

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