Syjuco claim: I was the hero in Tesda mess

By: Cynthia D. Balana - 11 years ago

SYJUCO

MANILA, Philippines—Former Iloilo Rep. Augusto Syjuco has admitted anomalies at the Technical, Educational Skills and Development Authority (Tesda) when he was its head but claimed it was he who broke up the syndicates there.

“The anomalies in Tesda were true. There were gross deficiencies in deliveries of certain equipment to Tesda,” Syjuco said in a letter.

But he added: “Modesty aside, I was the hero, not the villain. I was the graft buster, not the grafter. I am the good guy in Iloilo that President Aquino should use as a prominent example of do-goodership, not the Darth Vader that (Senate President Franklin) Drilon misrepresents me to be,” he stressed.

He confirmed the presence of a syndicate involving suppliers and Tesda personnel from the receiving section of the warehouse.

Syjuco claimed he broke up that syndicate after an investigation conducted by his office, and the findings were forwarded to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) for followup and prosecution by the Department of Justice.

Ironically, he said, he is the one now facing criminal charges at the Office of the Ombudsman.

Irregularities

The complaint stemmed from the irregularities in the disbursement of public funds relating to the Ladderized Education Program of the Tesda (Leptes) and the Nordic Development Fund-Tesda (NDFTes) projects.

The Ombudsman’s resolution cited the March 12, 2009, report of the Commission on Audit that discovered that the training equipment and testing tools delivered by V.G. Roxas Co. Inc. under the Leptes and NDFTes projects were of low quality and overpriced ranging from 4 percent to 42,732 percent or by P61 million, which accounted for at least 20.18 percent of the total procurement of P302 million.

Syjuco insisted that he did not pay for those anomalies and even held back payment from the supplier, including those for items that were deficient or overpriced.

Syjuco just arrived from Singapore and Malaysia where he was allowed by the court to go for a medical checkup, and to celebrate a wedding and a birthday.

His counsel, lawyer Lawrence Arroyo, said the pretrial of the Syjuco cases at the Sandiganbayan has been set to Nov. 29 following the marking of the exhibits at the preliminary conference yesterday.

Earlier, complainant Annie Geron, general secretary of Public Services Labor Independent Confederation (PSLINK) and former president of the Samahang Malaya ng Nagkakaisang Kawani ng Tesda, appealed to the antigraft court to speed up the cases of Syjuco and several officers of the agency implicated in a number of graft charges. She said she feared that Syjuco might evade justice by pulling off a “wheelchair defense” and use his medical condition to delay the cases or avoid accountability.

Geron described PSLINK as a national confederation of unions from different national government agencies, state universities and colleges, local government units, government-financial institutions, health and special sectors.