MANILA – The director of the National Printing Office (NPO) was dismissed for allegedly raping his 13-year-old ward as well as complaints of persistent delays in the delivery of official accountable forms to various government agencies, a senior Malacanang official announced.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said he ordered the dismissal of Enrique Agana as the NPO director after allegations surfaced that he raped the girl, a student in one of the high schools in Metro Manila and whom he described as a ward.
Named to replace Agana was retired Philippine navy vice admiral Tirso Danga, the former chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Western Command and deputy head of the AFP intelligence service.
Ermita said Agana was dismissed despite a statement from the mother of the girl, who claimed the rape allegation was concocted by a businessman and his cohorts to blackmail Agana into giving them a printing contract worth the equivalent of $60,000.
Agana also vehemently denied the rape allegation and accused the businessman of fabricating the “lies” to force his ouster.
Aside from the alleged rape, Ermita said Agana was also fired due to numerous complaints from various government agencies and local government treasurers about the persistent delays in the NPO delivery of social accountable forms.
He added private printing companies also complained about alleged rampant corruption and extortion in the NPO’s public bidding of contracts, especially for forms needed by the Land Transportation Office, the state-owned Land Bank of the Philippines and the Philippine Ports Authority.
The NPO is official government agency tasked to print ballots, election paraphernalia and official government receipts like the accountable forms needed to strictly keep track of, and account for, say, registration documents for vehicles and property.
Ermita revealed that the frequent delay in the NPO’s delivery forced even Secretary Margarito Teves of the Department of Finance allow local government units to turn to private companies to print their accountable forms.
He also said Teves wrote a letter to Agana warning him that the delay hampered the operation of local government treasurers who need these documents in their daily business transactions but Agana apparently failed to heed the warning.
Ermita also disclosed that in 2008, there was an alleged attempt by some “syndicates” inside the NPO to overprice the printing of the ballots needed for the elections at the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
However, a reliable Malacanang source, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, questioned the propriety of the appointment of Danga as the new NPO director.
The source said Danga was one of the key figures in the “Hello Garci” scandal which involved wiretapped conversations between former election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano and several politicians, including President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, during the 2004 elections.
Danga, the source disclosed, was then the head of the military intelligence service which reportedly wiretapped the conversations between Garcillano, the President and other politicians.
In one of the conversations, President Arroyo reportedly asked Garcillano to help protect her lead in the 2004 presidential race, according to the source.
Loading ...
Reader’s Views