CA urged: Review case vs DPWH, MWSS executives
The Court of Appeals. (INQUIRER.net file photo)
The Stop Kaliwa Dam Network asked the Court of Appeals (CA) on Thursday to nullify the Office of the Ombudsman’s dismissal of an administrative complaint against officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) over the construction of an access road for the dam project.
In a 46-page petition for certiorari, Fr. Pete Montallana, the group’s convenor who filed the complaint, said the ruling should be nullified “for having been rendered with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction.”
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He also urged the appellate court to order the Ombudsman to hold a fact-finding investigation on his complaint and to impose administrative sanctions against the respondents.
The respondents include the Office of the Ombudsman, its field investigation office, and DPWH officials identified as Samson Hebra, Jovel Mendoza, Salvador Salvana and Del Rosario Naca.
Also named respondents were MWSS officials led by Reynaldo Velasco, chair of the board of trustees; Emmanuel Salamat, administrator and vice chair of the board of trustees; and Leonor Cleofas, deputy administrator for engineering and operations.
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In a notice dated Oct. 12, 2023, the Ombudsman dismissed Montallana’s complaint because “there exists no sufficient basis to support the filing of criminal and administrative charges” against the respondents.
It also recommended that a fact-finding investigation into the complaint be considered “closed and terminated.”
Grave abuse of discretion
Montallana, represented by the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, argued that the Ombudsman committed grave abuse of discretion by dismissing the case despite an admission from the government officials during a Senate inquiry in 2020 that construction of the access road proceeded without the free and prior consent of the Dumagats and Dumagat-Remontandos indigenous groups. “These public officials must be held accountable over the trees and mountain surfaces carved out by access road construction that are clearly located within the Real, Infanta, Nakar Protected Landscape,” Montallana said in a statement.
During the hearing on Feb. 17, 2020, Sen. Imee Marcos questioned the officials for launching the project without securing the consent of the indigenous groups.
Cleofas and Salamat replied that there were “ongoing negotiations,” to which Marcos replied: “It can’t be continuing. [The agreement] should have been concluded.”
Montallana argued that their admission violated the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act or Republic Act No. 8371, which requires proponents to secure Free, Prior and Informed Consent from IP groups.
The Kaliwa Dam is an MWSS project with an estimated cost of P12.20 billion. It straddles Sitio Cablao, Barangay Pagsangahan, in General Nakar, Quezon province, and Sitio Queborosa, Barangay Magsaysay, in Infanta, also in the province.
