Samar pawns IRA to get P851-M loan from bank

TACLOBAN CITY—The provincial government of Samar, one of the country’s poorest provinces, is seeking an P851-million loan to build new or repair existing roads and build a new provincial hospital in a move that critics of the Tan political clan, which rules the province, described as a ploy to use public funds for the election bids of clan members who belong to the ruling Liberal Party (LP).

The province is being ruled by the Tan dynasty. Milagros Tan is representative, her daughter Sharee Ann is governor and her son Stephen James is vice governor.

Sharee Ann, the governor, said basic services would not be sacrificed to pay for the loan. “These would not be compromised,” she said.

The loan, however, is coming on the heels of a graft case that led to the suspension as then governor of Milagros from Nov. 11, 2008, to Feb. 10, 2009, over alleged irregularities in the purchase by the provincial government of supposedly emergency supplies in 2001.

The case had been filed by the group Isog Han Samar Movement which said the funds were meant for rice and medicines but were spent on electric fans supposedly for victims of Typhoon “Kidang,” which swept the province on Dec. 4-5, 2001.

Documents showed that the authority to purchase these items were granted to the province for another calamity, not Typhoon Kidang.

The group also said hundreds of sacks of rice, that were bought using the province’s funds, were contracted to Wilmart’s Mini Mart, a grocery store in Tacloban City that was not registered as a grains supplier in Samar.

Milagrosa, an LP member, is now on her second term in Congress.

In 2011, Sharee Ann and Stephen James faced a recall petition that accused them of incompetence in running the provincial government and serving as mere dummies of their mother.

The P850-million loan that the Samar provincial government is trying to secure would be the first for the province.

Allies of the Tans in the provincial board defended the loan against allegations it would be used for the benefit of the Tans in the 2016 elections.

“Should we stop our projects and development just because there will be an election coming? This proposed loan is for the betterment of the province and (its people),” said Board Member Allan Diomangay, chair of the provincial board’s committee on health.

Samar, consisting of the cities of Calbayog and Catbalogan and 24 towns, is listed as one of the country’s poorest provinces.

Nearly four out of every 10 resident of the province had been classified as poor in a 2012 poverty survey of the Philippine Statistics Authority. With a report by Ana Roa, Inquirer Research