| P1.89M
worth of cement, tires missing at Capitol CAPITOL
HILL — Some P1.26 million worth of
bags of cement and more than
half-a-million pesos worth of heavy
equipment tires were found by an elected
provincial official here to be missing
from the possession of the provincial
engineer’s office (PEO).
Board member Amado de Leon, chair of
the provincial board’s committee on
infrastructure, disclosed that the
government infrastructure supplies have
been reported missing since January this
year, but no action were allegedly
undertaken to determine how were these
lost.
According to him, there were
approximately four log tires missing, as
well as six each for graders and water
trucks, and five other tires for dump
trucks. All of these have a total market
value of P630,000.
He added that about 9,000 bags of
cement remained unaccounted for by the
PEO, which, according to him, would be
each worth P140.
De Leon moved for an inquiry on the
issue, saying that the primary object of
the investigation will have to be PEO
chief, Danilo Diamsay.
"The provincial engineer
(Diamsay) is the most responsible person
here, and he owes the people of Tarlac an
explanation on how his office lost these
government properties," said De
Leon.
He pointed out that the missing
supplies were supposed to be used for the
completion of the circumferential road
leading to the 200-hectare ecological
tourism park being developed by the
provincial government in the upland
village of Barangay Lubigan in Gov. Jose
Yap Sr.’s hometown of San Jose.
"Because of these missing
government infrastructure supplies,
construction for the vital road to a
potential tourist attraction of Tarlac
has been inadvertently affected,"
said De Leon.
He further revealed that the local
office of the National Bureau of
Investigation (NBI) in the province was
already informed about the losses.
However, De Leon said that the special
law enforcement agency
"suspiciously" stopped its
investigation on the incident.
"If NBI agents cannot get to the
bottom of this crime done to our
taxpayers, then the provincial board
could probably render justice through a
legislative inquiry," he said.
— Benjie Villa and C. Philip
Gatdula IV
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