Probe Isabela anomalies, Senate urged

THE former mayor of Angandanan, Isabela, has turned his attention to the Senate for help in investigating anomalous transactions in the province allegedly involving billions in public funds.

In separate letters sent to the members of the chamber such as Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri, Blue Ribbons chair Sen. Francis Tolentino, Sen. Imee Marcos and Sen. Ronald ‘Bato’ Dela Rosa, Manuel Siquian also requested for a personal audience with the lawmakers “so I can expound and discuss thoroughly the anomalies being committed by (the) Isabela provincial officials.”

Siquian, who has now made it his personal crusade to rid Isabela of corrupt officials, decided to seek the help of the Upper Chamber after the cases of plunder, malversation of public funds and corruption that he has filed against Isabela governor Rodolfo Albano III and Vice Governor Faustino Dy III failed to make any headway at the Office of the Ombudsman (see also Pinoy Exposé, February 2, 2023).

Primarily, Siquian is questioning the yet-to-be completed ‘Ilagan-Divilacan-Isabela Road Rehabilitation and

Improvement Project’ (IDRRIP) that forced the provincial to spend P1.5 billion out of the P2.9 billion loan it secured from the Development Bank of the Philippines some 7 years ago, or on March 2, 2016.

Siquian succeeded his brother as mayor of Angandanan in 1970 after the Philippines Air Lines flight his brother and his sister-in-law were riding on mysteriously exploded in mid-air while on its way to Manila.

All the passengers on board were killed and the plane’s bombing is yet to be solved up to now.

In his complaint to the Ombudsman that was backed by audit reports from the Commission on Audit (COA), Siquian noted that the project was supposed to have been completed two years ago, or by March 2021.

The provincial government then again took out a fresh loan, in two tranches, with the DBP totaling P450 million, purportedly to finish the road project.

But as of today, Siquian further claimed that only 64 kilometers of the 81 kilometers of road covered by the loans have been completed.

In a related development, Siquian also questioned Ombudsman Samuel Martires for authorizing Expedito Allado Jr., the ‘OIC’ (officer in charge) of the OMB’s Case Records, Evaluation, Monitoring and Enforcement Bureau (CREMEB), to notify him of the dismissal of the cases he filed against Albano and the members of the province’s Bids and Awards Committee (BAC).

In the notice dated September 15, 2022 but which Siquian claimed he received “only recently,” Allado told Siquian that based on the recommendation of the OMB’s unnamed “evaluator,” the charges he filed (under IC-OL-21-0787) should be dismissed “for want of palpable merit.”

He said this was the “first time” that he received such a reply from the OMB and where he was not even given the chance to see a complete copy of the report.

“Normally, any dismissal or approval of any complaint is signed by the graft investigator and by the Ombudsman himself,” Siquian averred.

“What happened is beyond the normal,” he added.

Siquian also appealed to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to take action against Martires to “protect” the legacy of his father, Pres. Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, who created the OMB thru a presidential decree, PD 1487, on June 11, 1978.