Water agency employees welcome raps vs Pichay

Prospero Pichay. INQUIRER file photo

SAN PEDRO, Laguna—Employees of the Local Water Utilities Administration welcomed the filing of charges against Prospero Pichay Jr., claiming the former LWUA board chair had left the office suffering from a “negative cash flow.”

Aside from the allegedly anomalous purchase of a private bank in Cabuyao, Laguna, in 2009 that cost Pichay his seat in the LWUA board, the LWUA Employees Association for Progress (LEAP) is investigating some other allegedly anomalous transactions that they claimed could amount to billions of pesos in public funds, said Carmen Amores, a LEAP adviser.

Pichay, a Surigao del Sur congressman and a defeated senatorial candidate before being appointed LWUA chair in 2008, was removed from office in July 2011 after LEAP filed a plunder complaint against him with the Office of the Ombudsman.

Dismissed from their posts were former acting administrator Daniel Landingin and acting deputy administrator Wilfredo Feleo.

On Wednesday, the Department of Justice ordered the filing of charges of corruption, malversation and violations of banking laws against Pichay and Landingin. The DOJ said it found probable cause to indict the LWUA officials  for the P480-million bailout of the financially troubled Express Savings Bank Inc. (Esbi), without approval from the Department of Finance, the Office of the President and the Monetary Board.

The DOJ charges, however, did not include Feleo as respondent.

“How come Feleo was not included? He had a big role (in that transaction) because he was (LWUA’s) deputy administrator for finance and concurrently the acting president of the Esbi (right after LWUA had acquired the shares),” said Amores. With a report from Norman Bordadora