Alvarez wants 3 transpo execs sacked for conflict of interest

Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez on Wednesday called for the dismissal of three transportation undersecretaries for their dismal performance as well as conflict of interest while serving in government.

In a radio interview, the staunch ally of President Rodrigo Duterte in Congress scored the Department of Transportation, particularly Secretary Arthur Tugade, for delaying the bidding of multi-billion peso priority projects for these to be included in the emergency powers package pending in Congress.

Alvarez named the following undersecretaries as having conflicts of interest: undersecretary for railway Noel Kintanar, undersecretary for air operations Bobby Lim, and undersecretary for legal affairs Raoul Creencia.

The Speaker said he had scolded the officials during the budget deliberations, an allegation the officials denied.

READ: Alvarez grills DOTr officials: Country or self?

“With all these people at the DOTr, these undersecretaries who have their own vested interests, I am sure they will negotiate these contracts,” Alvarez said.

Kintanar was assistant vice president and executive director for Ayala Corp. before being appointed undersecretary, while Lim was country manager for International Air Transport Association and Creencia served as a government corporate counsel.

Alvarez warned that these officials with background in the private sector may use their positions to negotiate contracts with companies they were formerly employed with.

READ: Speaker raps transport execs: Whose interests are you serving?

Alvarez said Tugade was also “accountable for the inefficiencies of these people whom he appointed as undersecretaries.”

Alvarez accused the DOTr of “dribbling” projects which could have been implemented immediately without the need for emergency powers, citing those for the supply of drivers’ licenses and the mass rail transit supplies and services.

Congress is mulling the grant of special powers to Tugade as traffic chief to solve the traffic crisis in the metropolitan areas of Manila, Cebu and Davao.

Besides giving Tugade a variety of powers to resolve the traffic crisis, the bill also seeks to require transport officials to take up mass transportation.

READ: Traffic crisis bill wants execs to take public transport 

“The problem is not with Congress. We have asked the DOTr to show to us what they have accomplished so far and what their concrete plans are but they have not complied,” Alvarez said.

“We cannot just grant them emergency powers if we are not sure where they will use these,” he added.

READ: Bill to tap DOTC chief as traffic czar

Alvarez himself was haunted by the ghost of a graft case involving conflict of interest.

According to a Newsbreak report, Alvarez when he was general manager of the Manila International Airport Authority headed the technical committee and was a member of the bidding committee which awarded the built-operate-transfer contract to Philippine International Air Terminals Co Inc. (Piatco) to build the Ninoy Aquino International Airport-International Passenger Terminal 3.

Alvarez was accused of having financial interests in Wintrack Builders, the services of which Piatco engaged with in excavating the site of the terminal. Alvarez’s wife was an incorporator of Wintrack.

Alvarez had said all those charges were made up.

The Office of the Ombudsman dismissed the case in 2001.

The Sandiganbayan in 2010 also cleared Alvarez in a graft case involving the alleged anomalous procurement of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport-International Passenger Terminal 3 to a consortium in 1996 even though the consortium failed to meet the legal qualifications.