Unfinished projects bared in SP
AFTER 10 YEARS
LINGAYEN–The Third Pangasinan Highway District was hard pressed to explain itself after the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) learned that several local projects funded by the national government in the Fifth District that were started as early as 2005 or 2006 remain unfinished to this day.
Third Pangasinan Highway District Engineer Emmanuel Diaz was made to respond to claims of Mayor Amadeo Espino of Bautista and Mayor Mina Joy Pangasinan of Sison who appeared during the SP Question Hour on November 16.
Among the reported unfinished projects was the gymnasium project in Barangay Villanueva in Bautista town that only had posts, steel trusses and some of beams to show for which Diaz said the government already spent P13.5 million but needs another P13.7 million to complete the project.
The steel trusses have not been installed and are already beginning to show signs of corrosion.
A common cemetery for Barangays Villanueva, Artacho, Poponto, and Primicias, also in Bautista, which was started in the same year that the gymnasium was began, also remains unfinished.
Mayor Espino said that when he was still a barangay captain, then Rep. Mark Cojuangco promised barangay chairmen P500,000 to be drawn against his PDAF, and the shares of the barangays Villanueva, Artacho, Poponto and Primicias were combined to fund the gymnasium and the cemetery.
The mayor accused Diaz of lying when he said the unfinished projects were initiated by the barangays themselves when it was only then Rep. Cojuangco. Cojuangco who had access to the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), a discretionary fund in the government available only to members of Congress.
Another project similarly situated is a school building of the Basista National High School, said Espino, wondering why projects were started with no specific date of their completion including certainty of their funding requirements.
Sixth District Board Member Alfonso Bince Jr. wondered why the Villanueva gymnasium as well as the cemetery were not yet completed despite the lapse of almost a decade as the PDAF was stopped only in 2010 when the Supreme Court declared it as unconstitutional.
Diaz explained that the unfinished local projects are a result of absence of enough funds from the national government. He said he expects the gymnasium in Villanueva to be completed next year when additional funds allocation are allocated by the DPWH.
The Villanueva gym, he pointed out, was started in 2006 with P2 million initial allocation from the Cojuangco’s PDAF. It was augmented with another P3.5 million sourced from the senate, and another P5 million in 2008 again from Mr. Cojuangco’s PDAF.
Another project is the Bahay Intsik gymnasium in Sison town which was started in 2005 or 2006 but remained u completed despite the fact that P28 million was already spent.
Mayor Artemio Chan of Pozorrubio was also invited to shed light on projects still uncompleted in his town but failed to attend.
Meanwhile, Board Member Nestor Reyes noted that the gymnasium projects of the DPWH cost so much, unlike in Dagupan where Mayor Belen Fernandez is putting up village gymnasiums costing no more than P4 million, all funded by the city government.
He asked DPWH engineers to study what Dagupan is doing to save on costs of gymnasiums. (Leonardo Micua)
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