3 more senators caught in corruption crackdown, ICI says

National

AT LEAST three more senators are set to join the growing list of lawmakers under scrutiny for alleged corruption, the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) said Thursday, Nov. 13.

Without disclosing their identities, ICI chair Andres Reyes Jr. confirmed in a Philstar report that the commission will recommend charges against these lawmakers as part of its widening probe into public works anomalies.

The ICI has already sought plunder and bribery charges against Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Joel Villanueva over irregularities in Bulacan’s first district engineering office.

When asked if the newly flagged senators were different from Estrada and Villanueva, Reyes said they were. He added it was too early to name any House members involved, though lawmakers from both chambers have been mentioned in congressional hearings.

Five senators were previously implicated by public works officials in the so-called “flood control scam.”

The allegations first surfaced on Sept. 9, when former Bulacan first district assistant engineer Brice Hernandez told the House infrastructure committee that Estrada and Villanueva received a 30 percent “SOP” from flood control contracts.

Two weeks later, former public works undersecretary Roberto Bernardo said that Sen. Chiz Escudero and former senators Bong Revilla and Nancy Binay also allegedly benefited from kickbacks tied to flood projects. All officials tagged in the allegations have denied wrongdoing.

The ICI’s latest referral to the Office of the Ombudsman involves a P74-million riverbank protection project in Barangay Carillo, Hagonoy, Bulacan, which investigators say never existed.

Six personnel from the DPWH Bulacan first district engineering office, including Hernandez and Henry Alcantara, along with the owner of Darcy and Anna Builders and Trading, were recommended for criminal charges for malversation, falsification, and violations of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act and other laws.

Former DPWH secretary Manuel Bonoan, undersecretaries Roberto Bernardo and Maria Catalina Cabral, and six others were urged to face administrative cases for grave misconduct and gross dishonesty.(MyTVCebu)