Lawmaker urges probe of TESDA head

A Bulacan congressman asked the House of Representatives yesterday to investigate one of its former members, Dante Liban, for the "widescale corruption" in the government agency that he now heads.

In a privileged speech, Rep. Willie Buyson Villarama said the Technical Skills Development Authority (Tesda), headed by Liban as director general, can be a "fitting launching pad" for President Arroyo’s renewed campaign against corruption.

He said Tesda officials recruited by and identified with Liban have built a "corruption network" that is extorting money from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and selling documents to unqualified talents.

Tesda, as the agency mandated by law to certify the skills competencies of OFWs, including performing artists, is making it difficult for these workers to be deployed abroad and earn money for their families, he said.

Villarama cited the following cases:

• Legitimate recruitment agencies, talent managers, testing officers, testing venue owners, and overseas performing artists denounce the rampant sale of artist record books to unqualified workers for P25,000 to P45,000 per book. ARBs are documents that artists use for deployment abroad.

• The task of serving as testing administrators, which used to belong to Tesda’s organic staff, has been shifted to Liban’s constituents in Quezon City’s second district, which Liban represented in the last congress.

• There is a backlog in ARB issuance to legitimate performing artists dating back to 2001, preventing qualified entertainers from being deployed abroad and depriving their families of much-needed income.

• There are also complaints of corruption in the training projects under the cooperation programs of Tesda and an international training cooperation agency of Japan.

Villarama did not charge Liban directly with corruption but accused him of sitting on complaints brought to his attention.

He recalled that last Oct. 30, copies of ARBs sold to five unqualified talents for P25,000 each were brought to Liban who, he said, promised an investigation.

"It is now 2003 and the investigation has yet to start," he said.

He said the corruption in Tesda "has tainted the process of deploying talented performers and other workers abroad, exposing our country to ridicule." He said many of the performers certified by Tesda ended up abroad as prostitutes.

Sa hirap ng buhay, mga kasama, halos lahat ay napipilitang kumapit sa patalim (Desperate times have called for desperate measures). This despair has found its match in greedy and immoral government officials willing to sell the souls of our people for a fee," he stressed.