DAVAO CITY – Agusan del Sur Rep. Rodolfo Plaza said on Tuesday they got evidence to show that the board administering the use of the road users’ tax had questionable undertakings.

“There is a formula on how the fund should be distributed but it was never followed,” Plaza said here on Tuesday.

He cited a road asphalting project in Mindanao that did not push through because the funds were suddenly unavailable.

“They have become abusive and brazen and they don’t mind if they step on the toes of others,” Plaza said.

Asked where the money might have gone to, Plaza said: “Ask Dodi Puno.” Rodolfo “Dodi” Puno was once the executive director of the road board and is the brother of Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno.

“I don’t want to answer any libelous question,” he said.

Plaza said he could not give an estimate of how much was misused out of the road user’s tax fund but surmised it could be larger than the P60.5 billion that Senator Miriam Santiago had claimed.

“It must be higher. Over a period of time, I assume,” he said.

Former Public Works Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane debunked claims of Senator Miriam Santiago about anomalies in the disbursement of the P60.5-billion road user’s tax.

“We have documents that state the specific distribution. All of the money was spent down to the last centavo. These are documented and the distribution can be checked on the ground,” Ebdane told reporters here Tuesday, at the sidelines of the launching of Abante Tribung Mindanao.

Ebdane said that if there was really an anomaly in the spending of the road user’s tax, he should not be blamed, because he was not public works secretary when the malversation of funds took place.

“I was transferred to the Department of National Defense from February of 2007 until June 2007 and that was the time the alleged releases happened,” he said.

Ebdane said that when he got to sit at the road board, he made it a point to preside on all the deliberations and when he was not available, he asked for postponements.

“So all of the board resolutions were taken up in my presence and in my direction,” he said.

He, however, welcomed any investigation because he was "not bothered by the allegations" at all.

“I think I am credible enough,” he said when asked if the allegations would affect his presidential bid.