MANILA – An outspoken political ally of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo recommended on Monday the filing of plunder charges against two former ranking government officials for the alleged anomalous disbursement of the so-called road users tax equivalent to $1 billion.
Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago made the recommendation based on a report of a Senate committee which looked into the alleged anomaly on the use of the tax by officials of the Road Board.
In the report, Santiago said plunder cases should be filed before the office of the Ombudsman against former secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Junior of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in his capacity as the board chairman, as well as Rodolfo Puno, the board executive director and other officials.
Ebdane resigned recently as the DPWH secretary to join the presidential race in the May 2010 elections as the standard bearer of the Philippine Labor and Peasant Party.
On the other hand, Puno is the brother of Secretary Ronaldo Puno of the Department of Interior and Local Government, who is also acknowledged as one of the closest political advisers of President Arroyo.
When contacted, Ebdane said the Santiago recommendation was politically-motivated, coming at a time when he has formally announced his entry into the 2010 presidential derby.
Earlier, Puno vehemently denied involvement in the alleged scandal, saying he signed the documents for the fund disbursements as a “purely ministerial matter.â€
However, in her privilege speech, Santiago hinted that Puno allegedly enriched himself while in office. She cited a column item in one of the Metro Manila dailies which implied that Puno, although he was not identified, had just bought a beachfront property worth $5 million on the world famous Boracay Island in the Visayas.
Another column item, Santiago said, referred to Puno as the owner of a yacht costing millions of pesos in Philippine currency which is moored at the Manila Yacht Club located beside the Philippine Navy headquarters in Manila.
Santiago released the report in her capacity as chairman of the Senate Committee on Economic Affairs, which investigated the alleged massive fund misuse based on findings of a team from the Commission on Audit.
The senator admitted she was forced to include Ebdane in the recommendation for the filing of a plunder complaint because of his mandate as chairman of the Road Board.
But Santiago insisted she believes it was Puno who was largely to blame as executive director of the board.
The tax has been collected annually since 2001 from owners who register annually their private and public vehicles – cars, trucks, buses and vans – with the Land Transportation Office.
Under the law, the tax is supposed to be used mainly to ensure road safety like construction of drainage systems, purchase of road signs as well as implementation of anti-pollution measures.
However, Santiago pointed out that if the road drainage systems were properly maintained, this would not have led to the massive flooding caused by four typhoons, especially “Ondoy†(international codename Ketsana) which brought on September 26 record rainfall that inundated Metro Manila as well as neighboring areas in Central and Southern Luzon, considered the worst in 40 years.
Loading ...
Reader’s Views