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Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr. on Sunday threatened to file a criminal case against Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno and several others for giving undue advantage to Aremar Construction belonging to the family of his in-laws.
Andaya, head of the House committee on appropriations, said Diokno could face a criminal complaint instead of just contempt charge.
“That would concern the construction company of his child,” Andaya told dzBB radio.
“First of all, [there is a] conflict of interest. That is the case. Once a child of a [government official] benefited [from a government project], that is against [the law].”
Andaya said the committee on appropriations will turn over its investigation to the committee on public account led by Quezon Rep. Danilo
Suarez, which will file the complaint against Diokno and others before a prosecutor’s office or before the Office of the Ombudsman.
“We are preparing [the documents]. These are already being retrieved from me. I will be transferring the documents to him [Suarez],” Andaya said.
He said Diokno allocated funds in the national budget to the Casiguran, Sorsogon projects bagged by Aremar Construction, which entered a joint venture with CT Leoncio Construction and Trading.
“In the next hearing, he [Diokno] would not attend again. He would just let us wait until the session ends. This is why we are no longer interested [in waiting for him],” Andaya said.
Earlier, Andaya said his panel could possibly file plunder and tax-evasion complaints against the owners of Aremar Construction.
The committee on appropriations then took custody of over P50 million worth of alleged deposit slips to the firm by big-time or triple A construction companies as dummies.
Andaya said Suarez’s panel would continue hearing the P75-billion insertion of Diokno, and that even Diokno’s chief of staff, Budget Undersecretary Amenah Pangandaman and engineer Glenn Degal, a technical expert assigned at the programming division of the Department of Public Works and Highways-Planning Service, would be summoned.
