Execs sing different tunes on cable theft
CLARK FREEPORT—Two officials of the government-owned Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) sang different tunes on Thursday after the Inquirer published a report on the theft of 2,195 meters of high-voltage power cables at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport here.
The person who blew the lid on the theft said he was standing by his disclosure.
“I stand by my statements that are based on records, as evidenced by the engineering and security department reports and recommendations,” said Reynaldo Catacutan, CIAC vice president for airport operations management group.
Catacutan said Victor Jose Luciano, CIAC president and chief executive officer, was liable for allegedly securing passes for four men who turned out to be suspects in the theft.
Luciano, however, said the letter advised airport security personnel to conduct a background check on the four men identified to be employees of ACP Manpower.
The manpower agency is owned by Josie Gomez, a businesswoman who was sued together with Luciano last year for alleged missing scrap metals salvaged from former US military buildings here. The case, filed by Mayor Jerry Pelayo of Candaba, Pampanga, is pending at the Office of the Ombudsman.
In a news release denying the cable theft, CIAC quoted engineering and maintenance manager Ruel Angeles as saying that the “missing cables are remnants of the old power lines.”
These, the release said, were installed on Runway 02R/20l and Taxiway 5. “These old lines are used to power the perimeter lights and not Runway 2 and Taxiway F5,” said the release.
Angeles was quoted as saying that the power cables were “still intact.” The release said Angeles erred on his previous report about the theft and the actual length and value of the power cables.
The Inquirer confirmed the case of the missing cables through a Sept. 9 memorandum of Angeles and a Sept. 23 investigation report by Jose Marlowe Pedregosa, aviation security manager.
“A field inventory conducted by our electrical maintenance section on the underground distribution systems at the airfield resulted in the discovery of missing high voltage XLPE 15 KV power cables,” Angeles said in the memorandum.
“The actual length of the missing cables were 1,275 meters and 920 meters more or less amounting to approximately P2.655 million computed on the present market value of new cables,” the memo said.
Angeles said he was not pressured into issuing what he called “clarifications.”
Pedregosa who, in his Sept. 26 memorandum, recommended legal action against the ACP Manpower employees, was quoted in the news release as saying that they “would not be able to carry more than 2,000 meters of cables without being seen.”
Reached by phone, Gomez confirmed owning ACP Manpower but denied that her workers stole cables. Luciano, she said, gave them permit to enter Blocker 4 Area.
“We only cleared grass. The metal items we saw there, we turned those over to the procurement [department]. The guards also recorded the items we found,” Gomez said.
In text messages to officials of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority, CIAC and Clark Development Corp., Luciano called the Inquirer report as “baseless, inaccurate and exaggerated” although he did not dispute the information during the interview on Wednesday.
