PNP willing to cooperate in probe of ‘pre-owned’ choppers

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine National Police on Thursday said it would cooperate with a Senate investigation into the elite Special Action Force unit’s purchase in 2009 of three brand new helicopters, two of which later tuned out to be secondhand.

Chief Superintendent Agrimero Cruz Jr., PNP spokesman, said the PNP was willing to answer any questions into the P105-million deal it entered with supplier Manila Aerospace Products Trading Corp., which senators had accused of “intentionally misrepresenting the helicopters they were selling as brand new.”

“As far as I know, they [helicopters] are brand new,” Cruz said in a phone interview. But the official added that it was up to MAPTRA to prove that the aircraft were brand new.

He said he was not privy to the actual negotiations at the time, although during the test flight of the choppers, he had been informed that the three were brand new. “That’s what I put in the press release we sent out,” he said.

In a Senate resolution, Senators Panfilo Lacson and Teofisto Guingona III, the blue ribbon committee chairman, called an investigation into what they said might be an “anomalous contract which not only gave unwarranted benefits or advantage to a party but also one which is manifestly and grossly disadvantageous to the government.”

In May 2009, according to reports, the PNP negotiated with MAPTRA for the purchase of three equipped light police operational helicopters (LPOHs), later modified to only one equipped and two standard LPOHs.

In July 2009, the PNP, under the leadership of then PNP Director General Jesus Versoza, approved the contract with MAPTRA to purchase of one Robinson R44 Raven II and two Robinson R44 Raven I helicopters for P105 million.

But in the resolution, Lacson and Guingona said the two R44 Raven I helicopters were discovered to be “pre-owned,” with flight logs recorded as far back as March 2004.

“There is an urgent need to look into this anomaly in order to prevent the PNP from entering into another contract of similar nature and to determine possible violations of RA 3019,” they said.