Metrobriefs

MMDA dissolves 3 units due to lack of budget

Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Chairman Francis Tolentino has disbanded three units within the agency to streamline operations, saying some of the groups’ functions overlapped. In a statement, Tolentino said he dissolved the MMDA’s construction and equipment maintenance office (CEMO), roadway clearing group (RCG) and roadway cleaning operations group (RCOG). He then integrated their functions into the Metro Parkway Clearing Group. Tolentino said the reorganization was due to budget constraints after the national government slashed the MMDA allocation by 52 percent. At the same time, he allayed the fears of the displaced agency personnel and said they would be “evaluated and placed in other offices within the MMDA based on the agency’s needs and the employees’ skills, qualifications and previous performance.” “We respect security of tenure. Our people will be placed where they are needed most to achieve optimum delivery of public services in the metropolis,” he said.—Miko Morelos

Dominguez airs complaint on media treatment

The suspected leader of a car theft gang complained Wednesday about media’s tendency to focus on the negative. “Why do you always report about the negative things being said about us? You have yet to write about the positive developments in the cases filed against us,” Roger Dominguez told reporters in Filipino during a break in the hearing of the Venson Evangelista robbery-slay case. Dominguez, along with his brother Raymond, are accused of the murder of Evangelista, a car dealer who disappeared during a test drive of a vehicle he was selling to prospective buyers. According to Dominguez, some of the cases filed against them have been dismissed for lack of evidence but these were not reported in newspapers. He also said that he did not know the leader of a rival car theft described by the police as more dangerous than his alleged gang. “I do not know his group and I have not heard of him,” Dominguez told the Inquirer when asked if he knew 21-year-old Gerald Briones. According to the brothers’ lawyer, Joey Cruz, car theft and murder cases filed against his clients in Bulacan and Pampanga were dismissed more than three years ago. Nancy C. Carvajal