Partylist group launches campaign vs Dato, Arroyos

NAGA CITY—A partylist group has launched a crusade against the election of members of the family of the former president and now Pampanga second district Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, said the lawyer who filed Tuesday another plunder case against the Arroyos.

Lawyer Roberto Guevarra, legal counsel of partylist Sanlakas and one of the four complainants in the plunder case against Macapagal-Arroyo and son Diosdado Ignacio “Dato,” admitted the case was filed with the intention of campaigning against the Arroyos.

In a statement sent to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Guevarra said the filing of plunder charges against the former president and Dato is part of Sanlakas’ campaign to convince voters to junk members of the former President’s family.

Guevarra said Sanlakas activists in Camarines Sur found out that the projects announced in 2008 by the former president were never completed or implemented.

Macapagal-Arroyo announced P3-billion worth of projects during her visit to Dato’s adopted town of Libmanan during Dato’s 34th birthday celebration on Sept. 4, 2008.

The projects announced during that occasion included P28 million for a biomass plant; P129 million for reforestation; P700 million for a dam; P600 million for embankment of Bicol River in Libmanan town; and P800 million for the bridge from Libmanan to Canaman towns.

During the term of his mother, Dato received some P3 billion in infrastructure projects that also included the P1.9-billion project for the rehabilitation of the irrigation system in Sipocot, Libmanan and Cabusao towns and construction of a dam in the boundary of the towns of Sipocot and Lupi.

The dam construction was suspended in 2009, with a 14-percent completion rate, after environmental and farmers’ groups opposed its construction.

Another project, the Libmanan-Canaman Skyway worth P1.2 billion, has also been started in 2009. The Skyway will shorten travel time from Libmanan to Naga City by 20 minutes and serve as an alternative route going to and coming from Manila.

But Guevarra said Sanlakas attached in the Ombudsman complaint a Saro (Special Allotment Release Order) worth P500 million released in 2011 by the Department of Budget and Management.