City hall evasive on Magsaysay deal
POLITICAL SHOWDOWN IN DAGUPAN SEEN
Guadiz also doubts Metrostate’s capability
While Vice Mayor Alvin Fernandez continues to hound city hall, in his capacity as presiding officer of the city council, about the mysterious transaction entered into by Mayor Benjamin Lim for the development of the Magsaysay Park, the investigation of the affair at the committee level has had little progress.
After two postponements, Dagupan City Councilor Teofilo Guadiz III finally convened a meeting of his committee on laws and ordinances on Friday but the meeting did not last long and ended shortly after a few hushed discussions and additional documents were submitted by City Legal Officer Geraldine Baniqued and City Administrator Rafael Baraan.
Guadiz left without issuing any statement to newsmen about the status of his committee’s work.
However, in a talk to newsmen last Monday, Guadiz said the documents submitted to him showed it was not City Administrator Rafael Baraan who headed the Special Pre-Qualification Bids and Awards Committee but a certain Maximilliano Tan, reportedly an architect and believed to represent the Non-Government Organization sector.
He said the documents reflected that Baraan was a mere member of the SBAC while the city council was allegedly represented by Councilors Michael Fernandez, chair of the ways and means committee, and Vlad Mata, allegedly as a member of the minority in the city council.
Since the Local Government Code specifies that the head of the Pre-Qualification Bids and Awards Committee is the mayor and in his stead, the city administrator if he is not available, city hall insiders say the appointment of Tan as chairman of the SBAC may, therefore be questioned particularly since he is known to be a business partner of Alexander Siapno, who is listed as director and stockholder of Metrostate Realty.
“I wonder how Metrostate can convince the city council that it can build and operate an P84 million project if it has have no track record at all,” he said.
Guadiz said he will also inquire from the Philippine Contractors Association in Manila if Metrostate has a Triple A license for it to qualify to participate in a Build-Operate-Transfer project of that magnitude.
He also expressed doubts about the financial capability of Metrostate to build the P84 million project when its incorporation paper showed it has only P100,000 in paid-up capital, a subscribed capital of P400,000 with an authorized capital of P1.1 million.
Based on documents submitted so far, Metrostate is a new company formed by S and F (Siapno and Feliciano) Realty Corporation and LXS Builder and Supplier owned by Alexander Siapno, the only original bidder with Philippine Contractors Accreditation Board (PCAB) license.
GuadizGuadiz said his committee’s first job is to determine whether the procedures laid down in the Build-Operate-Transfer Law were followed from the conceptualization stage to the bidding and post- bidding stages.
In addition, the councilor said he will seek to validate the estimated P84 million cost of the project, as submitted by the proponent, with the Contractors Association of the Philippines.
The business aspect of the project will be tackled by the city council en banc and he believes he can contribute to the discussion given his experience as a bank lawyer.
“I will submit my findings to the Sanggunian and it is up to the individual member of that body on what they will do,” he said, without giving a hint on what the findings will be.
Guadiz admitted that among the present officials in Dagupan, he has a keen interest in the development of the Magsaysay Park since it was his grandfather, the late Mayor Teofilo Guadiz Sr. who built the same in 1962 in honor of the late President Ramon Magsaysay.
When Mayor Cipriano Manaois attempted to relocate Magsaysay’s statue from the park, ex-Mayor Guadiz embraced the statue and told off employees of the City Engineer’s Office, “You can only remove this over my dead body”.
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