5 DPWH officials fired over vehicle scam

President Arroyo dismissed yesterday five key officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for their involvement in a P182-million vehicle repair anomaly that hit the agency in 2001.

Mrs. Arroyo affirmed the Dec. 19, 2002 recommendation of the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC), which found the DPWH officials "guilty of dishonesty, grave misconduct, gross negligence of duty and conduct prejudicial to the best interests of the service."

Dismissed were DPWH administrative, manpower and management service director Burt Favorito; comptrollership and financial management service director Emily Tanquintic; Abraham Divina and Florendo Arias, director and assistant director, respectively, of the Bureau of Equipment (BoE), and legal services director Oscar Abundo.

The dismissed DPWH officials were all presidential appointees falling under the PAGC’s jurisdiction, Malacañang said.

The President’s dismissal of the erring DPWH officials was in line with her efforts to stamp out corruption and her thrust to institutionalize good government.

The Palace said the presidential legal counsel reviewed and concurred with the PAGC findings approved by PAGC Chairman Dario Rama and Commissioner Teresita Baltazar. PAGC Commissioner Cesar Buenaflor was on leave.

Besides outright dismissal, the errant DPWH officials were penalized with "forfeiture of retirement benefits and perpetual disqualification from employment in the government service," the Palace said.

"Let this serve as a warning that we will not tolerate any corrupt practices in this administration," Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye said.

Docketed as PAGC ADM-0095-02, the case stemmed from an audit report referred by then DPWH Secretary and now Justice Secretary Simeon Datumanong to the PAGC on June 23, 2002.

Datumanong said the DPWH internal audit service (IAS), after reviewing some 7,000 DPWH vouchers for 2000-2001, found that 578 vehicles and equipment from the department motorpool were subjected to emergency repairs and replacement of defective spare parts costing P139,633,134.76.

DPWH auditors actually stopped count of the amount of cash disbursed anomalously at P140 million, as detailed in 7,000 vouchers, but the Commission on Audit placed the number of receipts at 9,000, worth P182 million.

Datumanong ordered last week the dismissal of a total of 13 DPWH officials and employees, marking the conclusion of the DPWH’s investigation into the vehicle repair scam.

The scam was exposed in 2001 and entailed fund disbursements for exorbitant, repetitive and ghost repairs of some 500 vehicles in the DPWH motorpool. It was said to have been ongoing since 1999.

Some 20 DPWH personnel were administratively charged after substantial evidence of their guilt was found.

The dismissals and suspensions came after DPWH Undersecretary Edmund Mir retired ahead of schedule, taking a terminal leave on Dec. 27, 2002 – one year ahead of his scheduled retirement.

Mir was accused of failing to detect the anomaly, despite the fact that he was responsible for the department’s equipment. It could not be confirmed whether Mir’s retirement was connected in any way to the scam.

Among those implicated for the scam were DPWH undersecretary for administration Mabini Pablo and Mir. Pablo and Mir were reinstated earlier than the personnel who worked under them and were excluded from the administrative complaint.

Both Pablo and Mir are still facing charges before the Ombudsman of failing to exercise supervision over their staff. Both were ordered by Malacañang to formulate new guidelines to prevent a repeat of the vehicle repair scam.

The DPWH will also abolish within this year its Bureau of Maintenance (BoM) and BoE as a result of the scam.

The BoE was one of the offices found responsible for the scam.

The abolition, however, would not be limited to the two DPWH bureaus. It will also affect DPWH personnel performing similar functions in other DPWH offices nationwide, as the process of phasing these bureaus out progresses.

DPWH undersecretary for planning Teodoro Encarnacion said the abolition is part of a government-wide reorganization that will remove 14 other government offices to cut costs and streamline the bureaucracy.

A total of 10 repair shop owners, including those from the five shops that cornered many of the DPWH’s repair contracts in 2001 were charged before the Ombudsman. These contractors hardly lost in any of the DPWH biddings in which they participated. The case before the Ombudsman remains pending. — Paolo Romero