News Briefs
COURT DISMISSES VECO APPEAL
THE Visayan Electric Co. (Veco) suffered yet another legal setback in its court dispute with Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino.
The Cebu City Prosecutors’ Office upheld for lack of probable cause a previous ruling dismissing the criminal complaint filed by Veco against the hotel for pilferage of electricity worth millions of pesos.
Asst. City Prosecutor Dixon Fuentes, the second prosecutor to handle the case, denied the motion for reconsideration filed by Veco.
The office earlier said Veco failed to present evidence to disprove the charges against the hotel.
The issue stemmed from the complaint filed by Veco last November 2011. Veco alleged that Waterfront deliberately tampered wires leading to the hotel’s electric billing meter.
Veco alleged that the tampering resulted in the illegal reduction by 66 percent of the hotel’s electric bills.
Veco sought the payment of P168 million for the electricity, representing differential billing for the pilfered electricity consumption from August 2007 until its discovery on February 2011.
The complaint was filed by Ricardo Lacson, vice president for administration and customer service group of Veco.
Electric pilferage is prohibited by Republic Act 7832 or the Anti-Electricity and Electric Transmission Lines/Materials Pilferage Act of 1994. Reporter Ador Vincent Mayol
CITOM NEARING REMOVAL OF LAMPPOSTS
ABOUT 90 percent of the lampposts installed in Cebu City have been removed by the Cebu City Traffic Operations Management (Citom) so far.
Citom chief Rafael Yap said they’ve removed over 500 pieces of the 677 lampposts installed along S. Osmena Road, Juan Luna Avenue, Salinas Drive and Veteran’s Drive in Lahug. Only those along S. Osmena road have yet to be removed.
Holes on the sidewalk caused by the removal of the lampposts will be replaced with plants from the city agriculture office.
“There’s no urgency for us to complete the task. My immediate concern is the security of the lampposts which we stored at the GSO warehouse (located a block away from city hall). But so far, we have not lost any,” said Yap.
The 677 lampposts installed on Cebu City streets are the subject of a graft case in the Sandiganbayan for allegedly being overpriced when purchased by the national government for the 2007 Asean summit in Cebu.
The Ombudsman Special Prosecutor approved the request of Mayor Michael Rama to remove the decorative lampposts from city streets since they are not part of any confiscation or forfeiture proceedings by the anti-graft court. Chief of Reporters Doris C. Bongcac
