Drilon sued for plunder

Senate President Franklin Drilon: Plunder charge. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Former Iloilo Rep. Augusto Syjuco has filed a P65-million plunder suit before the Ombudsman against Senate President Franklin Drilon in connection with an allegedly irregular and poorly constructed three-story government building in Iloilo that was built when Drilon was still justice secretary in President Corazon Aquino’s administration in 1991.

In the complaint he filed last week, Syjuco, who is himself facing graft charges, accused Drilon of receiving kickbacks and rebates or commissions from his pork barrel releases as a senator for the construction of the P200-million Iloilo Hall of Justice and a later retrofitting of the building.

Describing the alleged offense as a continuing crime, Syjuco said Drilon allegedly tried to fix the building’s structural defects by spending another P50 million for repairs in 2012, this time using Drilon’s Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allocations as a senator for that year.

Exposed by quake

In the complaint, Syjuco said the building’s questionable structural integrity and defects were shown following a 5.7-magnitude earthquake that hit Iloilo in February 2012.

He said that no other building was badly damaged except for the Hall of Justice which was why the regional trial courts, the offices of the clerks of court, the Philippine Mediation Center, the Iloilo Provincial Prosecutor’s Office, Iloilo City Prosecutor’s Office, and the Public Attorneys’ Office (PAO) decided to vacate the building.

‘Undue influence’

“It is of public knowledge that respondent Franklin M. Drilon and his co-conspirators unlawfully received a kickback/commission of more than P50,000,000 for the construction of a substandard Iloilo Hall of Justice which amount represents the money needed for the retrofitting of said building after it was found out to be inherently and structurally defective,” the complaint said.

It said the project was awarded without a proper bidding process being conducted and that Drilon, as justice secretary, had “unlawfully intervened and exerted undue influence in granting the construction of the Iloilo Hall of Justice Building to Kanlaon Builders, Inc.”—Cynthia D. Balana