Substandard construction supplies seized in Laguna

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

CAMP VICENTE LIM, Laguna—The Philippine National Police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group seized more substandard construction materials worth P49 million from the same warehouse in Cabuyao City, Laguna, that it raided for the same alleged offense last month.

The assorted construction materials were found inside the warehouse of South Luzon Steel Industrial Corp. in Barangay Banlic during an operation at 8 a.m. led by Chief Supt. Benjamin Magalong, the head of CIDG, according to the agency’s information officer, Chief Insp. Elizabeth Jasmin.

Together with the CIDG team were representatives from the Department of Trade and Industry in Calabarzon and industry representatives “who determined that the materials were substandard,” Jasmin said in a telephone interview.

Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon) CIDG chief Senior Supt. Felipe Natividad, in a separate phone interview, said it was the same warehouse that authorities raided on July 14.

During the first raid, the CIDG confiscated P37 million worth of steel bars, angle bars, and rolled bars.

Eleven persons, five of whom were “undocumented” Chinese nationals, were arrested then, but they were eventually ordered “released for further investigation” by the office of the Cabuyao City prosecutor, Natividad said.

“We had to secure another search warrant, this time to cover the other type of items such as (construction) nails and pipes,” Natividad said.

Former senator Panfilo Lacson, President Aquino’s special adviser on post-Yolanda rehabilitation, was expected to visit the warehouse Wednesday afternoon.

Earlier in July, the authorities also seized P40 million worth of substandard materials, some reportedly sold to supertyphoon Yolanda-hit areas in Cavite. The operation in Cavite was on orders from Lacson, who is also from Cavite.