Missing Dawel River Cruise barges found
THE three missing barges customized as riverboats for the Dawel River Cruise were found by the police ditched and moored beside properties of Dagupan Mayor Benjamin Lim.
As initial police investigation showed, employees of Magic Group walked into the “Daongan ed Dawel” pulled out the three barges used for the Dawel River Cruise on the pretext that the engines need to be repaired.
The “Daongan ed Dawel” was hyped as a flagship tourism project of the administration of outgoing Mayor Benjamin Lim.
Soon as Acting Mayor Belen Fernandez was alerted though a phone call that the barges were missing, she immediately ordered Superintendent Christopher Abrahano, chief of the Dagupan police, to investigate and the latter traced on Wednesday two of the barges ditched at the fishpond being rented by the family of Lim in Sitio Watak, Mamalingling.
The third and bigger barge was found in a creek at the back of Nepo Mall.
In a subsequent sworn statement signed by Wilfredo Gali, the security guard detailed by New 788 Security Agency to guard the facility, identified the Magic employees who arrived on different times on June 3 as “Jessie”, “Engr. Raffy”, “Kennedy Vallo” and seven other unidentified persons who arrived with them to detach two floating dockings and iron ladders and loaded them on a truck bearing plate RLK-991.
City hall employees identified as Jun Ramos, Marvic Caguioa, Nic Vila and a certain “Erdy” also arrived to remove the amplifiers, speakers and vests from the barges before these were pulled out. They eventually boarded the barges that left.
Gali said he was told that the barges would be brought to the “fishponds of Mayor Benjie Lim”.
A regular mechanic at the facility, “Marbe Bautista” also arrived to pull out the “defective” engine at the dock on orders of “Engr. Raffy”.
All three barges showed signs they were already cannibalized for parts, said Fernandez.
Fernandez noted that barges’ disappearance on Sunday was evidently timed with the filing of resignation of Manuel Gutierrez, chief of the coastal management protection task force, on Monday.
Gutierrez was tasked by Lim as maintenance officer of the river cruise.
Not a single personnel assigned to the cruise operation alerted the city hall about the disappearance of the barges.
City Engineer Virginia Rosario has since assigned personnel to watch the Daongan facility 24/7.
PUBLIC OR PRIVATE
Rosemary Teng-Mejia, city tourism officer, later attempted to justify the pulling out of the barges claiming that these are personal properties of Mayor Lim, not of the city. She did not inform Fernandez of the pull-out.
Fernandez, replying to newsmen’s queries, said that it was City Administrator Vladimir Mata who told the Sangguniang Panlungsod that the barges are owned by the city government.
Fernandez said she is certain that while the city council did not appropriate any amount for the construction of the Daongan project, money from the city government was spent for the project.
This was evident when Lim asked the government to pay for the construction of the facility and barges but only after these were already completed.
She recalled that Lim, in a radio interview, simply justified the cost of the project under the principle of “value engineering”.
Fernandez recalled that during the formal launching of the River Cruise about two years ago, which was attended by partylist Rep. Teodoro Casino and timed during the Bangus Bangus, Lim never mentioned about the river cruise being privately owned and operated but introduced as a city project managed by the city’s tourism office.
If it were a private venture, Fernandez said it would have been required to obtain a franchise from the SP and a business permit from the city government and a building permit for the “Daongan ed Dawel” dock on a part of the public land in front of San Marino’s Place.
Fernandez said she will ask the city treasurer, accountant and other officials to compile all documents pertaining to the project to prove that the city’s funds were used to bankroll the construction and operation of the “Daongan ed Dawel” and the river cruise barges.
Records initially show that the city already paid P10.1 million to various suppliers for the project without the benefit of an ordinance. Maintenance and operational costs have yet to be determined.
Fernandez said the city will file legal cases against all those responsible for the unauthorized removal of the barges and the abandonment of the cruise project.
At the same time, Fernandez was informed that steel bars piled up beside the unfinished structure across the road, believed owned as well by the city government, have also disappeared.
Construction of the planned restaurant building ceased when the private owner of the lot complained that no permission was granted to the city or the mayor to construct anything on the land.
Fernandez said she sees nothing wrong with continuing with the river cruise project since it is a tourist activity and public funds have been used for it.
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