Former DPWH official claims vehicle scam going on since 1999

Blame peer pressure and lax disbursing procedures since 1999 at the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for the P150-million vehicle repair scam, which appears to be just the proverbial tip of the iceberg, the main character in the unraveling scandal said.

Relieved DPWH motorpool section chief Maximo Borje Jr. broke his silence by granting an interview with The STAR, during which he insisted that he was not involved in the scam. But he reminded this reporter that the P150 million covers only 2001.

Borje said that he had "to go with the flow" and that had he not "cooperated, they would have worked for my ouster."

"It was so lax during the past years," said Borje, 53, who was stripped of his post as motorpool section chief on Jan. 16. Since then, he has been put on "floating" status until his suspension last month. Now, he does not have to go to work.

He claimed that he did not enrich himself and that he did not benefit from the multimillion-peso scam. He said at the time he was working as a section chief, he only earned P21,000 monthly.

Borje said that his "wealth" was composed of a "little" inheritance from his late aunts, three apartment units in Project 4 in Quezon City which were being rented out and his house in Antipolo City.

He said he has seven hectares of rice land in Narvacan, Ilocos Sur, but he only sells about 20 cavans of rice from the entire agricultural land.

Borje, who had worked in the DPWH for the past 24 years, said he may have signed as many vouchers in 1999 and 2000 as in 2001 alone, but claimed that about 40 percent of all those vouchers had been signed by his superiors before they landed on his desk for his signature.

An estimated total of 7,000 anomalous vouchers were allegedly involved in the scam. Of the vouchers, about P63 million worth of repairs bore his signatures. Aside from Borje, 40 other DPWH personnel were implicated in the scam, and all of them had signed the questionable vouchers.

"Who am I to reject those vouchers, when my own bosses had already approved them?" he asked.

Borje and the 40 others had been suspended for three months, along with two DPWH undersecretaries being questioned for failing to detect in advance the escalation of the irregularities.

"In many instances, my name was just placed in the vouchers (by the suppliers) because according to them, getting the reimbursements was faster if my name was affixed on the documents," said Borje, who has a degree in mechanical engineering.

The practice of signing the requested "repair jobs" had been a long-standing one even before he was promoted as motorpool section chief on Oct. 16, 1995.