Graft raps filed vs Angping

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Sports Commission has filed of a complaint before the Ombudsman, accusing former PSC chairman Harry Angping of violation of Republic Act 3019 otherwise known as the anti-graft and corrupt practices law.

In the complaint filed last Friday, the PSC, now under chairman Richie Garcia, alleged that Angping entered into a contract, an augmentation of the PSC’s janitorial force, without going through the proper procedure.

Garcia said Angping inked a contract with Philcare Manpower Services in March of 2009, beefing up the janitorial force from 80 to 160, without going through a public bidding, and with no authorization from the PSC board.

“The law says clearly that when you augment manpower you have a limitation of 25 percent. Anything more than 25 percent you need to go through normal process of bidding. And in this case there was no board resolution,” said Garcia.

Angping, a former congressman from Manila, became PSC chairman in February 2009, and stepped down in June last year following the May elections. President Aquino then named Garcia as new chairman.

Garcia admitted that barely one month after he assumed office, they discovered the alleged anomaly, and informed the service provider that the PSC was rescinding the augmentation contract it had entered with Angping.

From the time of the augmentation up to the cancellation of the contract, the PSC paid the additional 80 janitors P18 million at around P15,000 each per month.

“Why only now? Well, it took us one and a half years to make sure everything is in order. There are lots of cases being thrown out of the windows because of insufficient evidence. Only now we found records to warrant the filing,” he said.

Angping branded the filing of the case as harassment.

“This is pure harassment. Or is this a cover-up to the SEA Games debacle? I’m not that careless to enter into such a contract without going through the legal process or the proper procedure,” said Angping.

“Of course there was a board resolution. And if they really had a strong case why did it take them so long to file it? It took them 18 months. This is harassment,” said Angping.

Garcia said the four commissioners under Angping, namely Fr. Vic Uy, Akiko Thomson, Jose Mundo and Eric Loretizo, may have no knowledge of the contract that was entered into by the PSC and Philcare Manpower Services.

“I guess if the commissioners knew there was an augmentation then they will be as guilty. But there were cases before that an act of the chairman was kept in the office of the chairman, and that the commissioners were kept unaware of what the chairman was doing,” Garcia said.

He was asked if he knew how long this has been going on.

“I don’t know. But this is not happening now. This will not be tolerated – that I have my signature there and they will act without questioning. Maybe things were taken for granted before,” he said, hoping that the case reaches the Sandiganbayan in time.

The PSC chief said they are not singling out Angping, and if there are other persons that knew of the augmentation and they kept silent about it, whether from accounting, legal and finance sections of the PSC, then they will be held liable, too.

“We are just doing our jobs to make this agency as straight as possible as clean as possible. Or we will be guilty of being remiss in our duties,” he said.

Garcia said Philcare still has a valid contract with the PSC because it won the latest bidding, but that it had only maintained a janitorial force of 80.  

“We invited others to participate but Mr. (Edmundo) Montanes (of Philcare) won the bid. There was no case yet when the bidding took place but we might rescind the contract if advised by our legal team,” said Garcia.