DPWH vehicles ‘lost,’ then surfaced at repair shops

Fifty-eight of 59 brand-new cars issued to district engineers of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) working on foreign-funded projects in 2000, "disappeared" with several of them later "surfacing" at repair shops with the bills forwarded to the DPWH.

The 59 cars were estimated to be worth more than P29 billion.

This finding was contained in a Commission on Audit’s economic analysis report in 2000, but apparently ignored last year, thus further ballooning the department’s repair bills to P36 million.

Public Works and Highways Secretary Simeon Datumanong eventually found out last January that some of the vehicles were repaired at a cost of P700,000 each.

Two of the vehicles, it turned out, were allegedly issued to two members of a five-man panel which Datumanong formed to investigate the alleged anomaly.

The two vehicles — a Toyota Cressida with license plate PAK 404 which was repaired in 2001 for P700,000, and a Toyota Crown with license plate PEH 179, repaired for about P600,000 — were said to have been assigned to the offices of the two panel members.

"The panel chairman was waiting for the two to inhibit themselves but they did not do so. So they (the three other members) are conducting hearings discreetly," a DPWH source said.

The investigation has been going on for six months.

Two other vehicles — a Toyota Land Cruiser with license plate SBC 784 which was repaired for P600,000 in 2001, and a car with license plate PGG 946 — were traced to two senior officials of the DPWH.

Panel members uncovered more alleged anomalies as they examined 7,000 vouchers for repairs involving 600 vehicles which could not be immediately accounted for.

The DPWH source said a physical accounting of all vehicles supposedly assigned to officials and employees of the DPWH’s central office would be done.

"We did not know it was this widespread until all the vouchers were collected and their costs added up," the source said.