(The Philippine Star) | Updated February 9, 2017 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines -
Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) chairman Jose Vicente Salazar has offered to
quit his post if lawmakers can find evidence of any act of corruption on his
part.
Asked during a House
hearing if he was willing to resign if his accusers could come up with credible
evidence against him, he said, “Yes, but I believe we will not find anything.”
Francisco Villa Jr.,
who headed the ERC bids and awards committee, committed suicide in November
2016 over alleged corruption in the ERC.
In a suicide note,
Villa accused “top management” of pressuring him on some questionable deals,
including an audio-visual presentation (AVP) project. Villa said he was “under
pressure” to approve a contract for the project in favor of a certain Luis
Morelos.
Salazar denied
pressuring Villa, saying the AVP project did not push through because the
bidding for it had failed twice and the Commission on Audit (COA) has
scrutinized the aborted project and found no irregularity in it.
Field auditors from the
COA have cleared Salazar of alleged corruption over the controversial AVP
project.
According to an
investigation report signed by state auditor Vivencio Quiambao Jr. and
supervising auditor Flovita Felipe, there is no ground to conclude that the AVP
was anomalous as it “was not consummated” and no payment was made to anyone in
connection with the project.
Salazar welcomed the
result of the audit report.
“We are pleased to note
that the report compiled by the COA following its investigation is consistent
with the earlier information the ERC released concerning the audio-visual
project in question,” he said.
“It is significant that
the COA report has confirmed the fact that no contract has been awarded for
the project in view of the successive failed biddings, and that no funds
were expended in connection with it.
“With the conclusion of
the investigation by the COA, we can now put this period behind us and face the
future with greater confidence in our ability to transform the vision of the
ERC into reality,” he added.
During the House
hearing, Salazar’s four colleagues in the ERC also questioned his decision to
stop an internal inquiry into Villa’s death, saying people suspected that the
ERC was hiding something.
But the ERC chief said
he had to discontinue it to give way to the COA scrutiny and a separate probe
launched by the National Bureau of Investigation.
It was the prudent
thing to do, he said.
Deputy speaker and
Marikina Rep. Romero Quimbo chided the four commissioners for “ganging up” on
their chairman.
“Why are you raising a
howl on supposed wrongdoing in a project involving P300,000-P400,000 when you
kept silent when your former chairperson was accused in the pork barrel scam?”
he asked.
He was referring to former
Pampanga representative Zenaida Ducut, whom the Office of the Ombudsman has
charged in connection with the multibillion-peso pork barrel scam.
Ducut allegedly acted
as agent for businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, the suspected mastermind of the
pork barrel scam. – With
Elizabeth Marcelo, Danessa Rivera
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