NEWS: Mayor, 8 others face Ombudsman suit over P90 M bond flotation project in Compostela Valley

aug 24

The entire town officialdom except for three opposing councilors in Nabunturan, Compostela Valley were charged of graft case at the Office of Ombudsman for Mindanao by a journalist and community leader for pursuing the P90-million bond flotation intended to fund the construction of a new public market building.

Charlie “Cha” Monforte, correspondent of Philippine News Agency, Business Mirror and local dailies, and Emilio delos Reyes, a president of a local parents-teachers association, charged in their joint complaint affidavit filed Thursday at the Ombudsman that Nabunturan Mayor Macario Humol, Vice Mayor Romeo Clarin and his seven councilors favoring the project have allegedly committed gross violations to Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act for failing to conduct public bidding in getting the services of the Preferred Ventures Corporation as the financial advisor/consultant of the bond flotation.

Respondent councilors of the case were Darwin Tan, Iluminada Cabuga, Eduardo Menoza, Vivencia Secuya, Cheryl Asion, indigenous peoples’ representative Felipe Masambo and Sangguniang Kabataan representative Jennifer Gamao.

Monforte and Delos Reyes have earlier prayed a petition for preliminary injunction and restraining order at the Regional Trial Court-Branch 3 in Nabunturan in trying to stop the implementation of Municipal Ordinance No. 2008-10 approving the P90-million bond flotation scheme.

RTC Branch 3 Judge Hilarion Clapis Jr has yet to rule on their petition.

For opposing the local bond float since early last year, Councilors Raul Caballero, Alfonso Tabas and Editha Arangcon were spared from the complaint.

The complainants stated that under the project Preferred Ventures Corp. is guaranteed a consultancy fee of P2.37 million and its project engagement “is not limited to advisory and review services but also includes pre-investment, feasibility, design, construction supervision, management and related services and other technical services and special studies”.

They claimed that even without the “legislative enactment, ordinance or resolution to hire a financial consultant and advisor for the municipality’s infrastructure project, Mayor Humol proceeded to enter into Memorandum of Agreement with Preferred Ventures” and “(it) became an automatic financial consultant/advisor without passing through the bidding procedure as required by law”.

They charged that the MOA signed on February 14, 2008 “is illegal and void ad initio” and that despite this, Humol proceeded also to conduct a pre-bid conference last May 15 for the construction of the public market building.

They also claimed that the bond flotation option is “grossly disadvantageous to the government” as even found out in the comparative study made earlier by the town’s Local Finance Committee (LFC) which recommended for a direct bank borrowing than the local bond float as in the latter “there are undetermined expenses that will result in problems in the budgeting and accounting process later”.

The LFC also stated in its study that under a loan from government financial institution “the cost of borrowing will be properly stated and easily provided in the budget” aside from the fact that “easier terms can be negotiated with the depository bank”.

Moreover, the complainants stated that as found out by the LFC “the LGU of Nabunturan will already spend (P39.6 million) on interest payment alone” under the bond float scheme “compared to only a projected total interest payments for GFI borrowing at (P30.9 million) for the same period of time”.

The complainants also charged that based on the approved final feasibility study made by Preferred Ventures Corp the monthly stall rental for a 10-square meter space could shoot up to P10,500 rate, and at that  “unconscionable rate” lowly market vendors whose stalls were burned over three years ago could no longer afford and face the spectre of being displaced from their long source of livelihood.

With that rate and to make the project feasible, self-liquidating as well as income-generating instead “in sum, the proposed public market building supposedly funded through the much-ballyhooed ‘bond flotation’ would be anti-poor and anti-people,” the complainants stated in their complaint affidavit to the Ombudsman. (RUN)

Filed under: Alfonso Tabas, Charlie "Cha" Monforte, Cheryl Asion, Darwin Tan, Eduardo Menoza, Emilio delos Reyes, Felipe Masambo, Iluminada Cabuga, Jennifer Gamao, Preferred Ventures Corporation, RTC Branch 3 Judge Hilarion Clapis Jr, Vice Mayor Romeo Clarin, Vivencia Secuya, bond flotation, councilor raul caballero, editha arangcon, nabunturan mayor macario humol , Alfonso Tabas, bond flotation, Charlie "Cha" Monforte, Cheryl Asion, councilor raul caballero, Darwin Tan, editha arangcon, Eduardo Menoza, Emilio delos Reyes, Felipe Masambo, Iluminada Cabuga, Jennifer Gamao, nabunturan mayor macario humol, Preferred Ventures Corporation, RTC Branch 3 Judge Hilarion Clapis Jr, Vice Mayor Romeo Clarin, Vivencia Secuya

The froth in Pinol’s mouth

Blogista

By Cha Monforte

It appears that this North Cotabato Vice Governor Manny Pinol is stoking himself the fire in the continuing insurgency staged by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Trying to be historical twister, it was this Pinol, who was then the governor, who cursed and slammed the people’s power in Manila as nothing but a mob rule in power grab conspiracy against the present President who was then embroiled in a crisis for calling Garci.

It was Pinol who thundered at the Marco Polo Hotel in the city before Mindanao local executives that a federal republic was all needed that time while he wanted Mindanao to separate if Manila’s people power would succeed in throwing out Gloria from her present seat.

Reminiscing those thunderous town-crying rhetorics in the way Pinol, Zubiri and other Mindanao pro-administration politicians have not moved things to advance federalism now, would only unmask Pinol’s rhetorics then as a diversionary propaganda job with a spin of downgrading and belittling people power as past phenomenon and true only in Metro Manila and never for the entire Luzon, much more in Visayas and Mindanao.

But the report was- such gathering of Mindanao leaders strapped in Pinol’s own mob rule of local executives was made and funded by Malacanang to save what the militants dubbed as an illegitimate President.

In Pinol’s recent pique and tirade he blamed the government for MILF’s recouping of its strength after they were supposed to be made a spent force after the government seized the rebels’ main camp in Buliok Complex in Liguasan Marsh in 2003. He said it was a mistake that the government gave the Buliok Complex back to the rebels as a confidence-building measure in the current peace talks. Which explains, he said, why the MILF rebels are again disturbing and creating havoc in his province.

Pinol’s myopic view should be straightened out. It was a only a battle that had wrought on a major MILF camp but it did not end MILF’s war. For since when the Moro war was stamped out of existence especially in Moro predominantly populated areas like Basilan, Sulu, Jolo, Sultan Kudarat, Lanao del Sur. It’s in these areas where belligerency of sorts exists and a Christian like Pinol’s governance could not really fit in its uniquely different frame. It’s in the true-blue Moro ancestral land where Moro insurgency survives and gets its life.

It would seem Pinol dreams for a day when the MILF will be erased from face of Mindanao. It’s easier said than done. Which is why the government is already talking ancestral lands for the Moro people to once and for all stop this war and bring peace in Moroland. It seems that the froth in Pinol’s mouth showing about his regret over a long existing MILF comes out without remembering that his province alone is sitting in soil originally possessed by the Moros if not with the lumads. Statements like that which prods war than builds peace are reckless and irresponsible – unless he is on the way again of mouthing diversionary propaganda job from Malacanang which a peace grouping labeled as actually not wanting permanent peace to reign in the Moroland. The ancestral land issue for the Moro people by the way is just a seductive hoax in the package after all.

BLOGBITS: The P90-million bond flotation in Nabunturan was not calendared during the Comval SP session last Wednesday. Sorry folks, we’ll wait for next week session… Eyebrows were raised when the van ambulance donated by Councilor Raul Caballero last May 20 was not used when the wounded of the July 3 grenade throwing were rushed to Tagum hospital. The papers (OR, CR) are already complete to make it running, only that the deed of donation is being delayed by the SB majority. Even without the deed, what did Dennis Bugas, reportedly the “little administrator” of the mayor who was out in town traipsing in Palawan during the blast and immediate days after, want to convey in not using the donated ambulance to ferry the wounded? Did he mean he gave more importance to politics, of not wanting that the new ambulance which has words at its side emblazoned with “Donated by Councilor Raul Caballero”, than rescuing fast for the lives of the injured and dying? The deed of donation which the SB majority keeps on delaying could not prevent the donated ambulance from running in times of town emergency. Until now the ambulance donated by the councilor for the people is sadly not yet running. (For online edition, visit my blog at: http://cha4t.wordpress.com)

Filed under: MILF, atty dexter lopoz, bond flotation, pinol , nabunturan, MILF, pinol, bond flotation

Comval SP to take up controversial P90-M Nabunturan bond float

NEWS

(7/7/08) The Compostela Valley provincial board will take up on plenary this coming Wednesday the controversial P90-million bond flotation of the municipality of the Nabunturan which oppositors charged earlier as grossly disadvantageous to the government.

The scheduled taking up of the municipal bond float is expecting a clash of legal luminaries among members of the provincial board and nominal voting to occur among members, sources told Sidlak.

Last week, the joint committee on finance and legal matters chaired by Boardmember Ruwel Peter Gonzaga favorably acted on the municipal resolution approving the feasibility study for the P90-million bond float which seeks to fund for the construction of a new market building that would replace for the public stalls and buildings which were gutted by a fire three years ago.

Oppositors charged that the bond flotation pushed by Mayor Macario Humol and Vice Romeo Mayor and his majority of councilors is exorbitant and too expensive and its terms are grossly disadvantageous to the government as earlier nixed even in a comparative study made by the town’s local finance committee.

Gonzaga, a lawyer and former vice governor, reportedly disempowered his committee citing arguments that the legal review powers of .the provincial board is limited and that it could not question the wisdom of the bond flotation of the proponent municipality.

But opposing Boardmember Atty. Arvin Dexter Lopoz countered that Gonzaga’s argument was flimsy as it would mean that should a municipal law is found to be glaringly contrary to law it would also go to say that the provincial board could not act on it otherwise for lack of legal review powers.

Critics of the Nabunturan bond flotation had also earlier charged that it was disadvantageous to the government for its expensive and exorbitant fees and other charges which included the P6.5 million for the architectural and engineering design alone which they dubbed as “sa papel pa lang” and other hidden fees, high interest rates, and other charges and expenditures that are much greater than or unnecessary if the municipal government resorts to mere bank borrowing.

Small stall renters and vendors in the town’s market have earlier expressed fear they would be dislocated from the project as the new public market to be constructed would have higher monthly rentals and advances which they said they could hardly afford.

In the feasibility study, a meter 10-square meter stall would have over P9,000 monthly rental.

Local oppositors have already mapped various legal actions including administrative case, recall and appeal for review by Department of Justice.

They charged that a project that is grossly disadvantageous to the government is violative in itself to Republic Act No. 3019, otherwise known as Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act. (Cha Monforte/Rural Urban News) http://ruralurbanews.blogspot.com

Filed under: bond flotation , bond flotation, humol, nabunturan market