LEGAZPI CITY—Public Works and Highways Secretary Mark Villar has sacked the district engineer in Bicol anew, just more than a month after he sacked three of his top DPWH executives in the region.
Villar signed Thursday the relief order of district engineer Edilberto Ativo of the Albay 3rd District Engineering in Ligao City.
DPWH Special Order No. 60 series of 2017 designated district engineer Edna Menez as the replacement of Ativo, who is reportedly reassigned temporarily to the regional office in Legazpi on a floating status.
Menez was district engineer of the Albay 2nd District Engineering from 2013 to 2015 when she was ordered dismissed from the service by the Ombudsman in March 2015 following a graft complaint.
But early this year, the Ombudsman ordered Menez reinstated after her motion for reconsideration was found meritorious.
DPWH regional director Danilo Versola could not be contacted for comment, but his executive assistant, lawyer Felix Brazil, confirmed the reassignment of Menez as district engineer vice Ativo.
A source said Albay Third District Rep. Fernando Gonzalez had been complaining of the “low performance” of Ativo.
Early last February, Villar relieved Bicol regional director Reynaldo Tagudando, assistant regional director Armando Estrella, and regional legal officer Oliver Rodulfo over their own infighting.
Villar reassigned Tagudando to the Bureau of Research and Standards, Estrella as assistant regional director for Eastern Visayas in Tacloban City, and Rodulfo as legal officer in Region 7 in Cebu.
Tagudando was replaced by Versola, who was Region 13 regional director based in Butuan City, while Marinduque district engineer Esmeraldo Sarmiento succeeded Estrella. Versola is from Davao City.
Brazil, however, clarified the reassignment of Rodulfo in Cebu did not push through after the Cebu-based legal officer reassignment was put on hold. He refused to elaborate.
Villar’s “rigodon” or staff movement in Bicol developed following his visit in Legazpi on Jan. 14, where he unexpectedly encountered Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption founding chairman Commodore Dante Jimenez at the Legazpi airport.
Villar and Jimenez’s brief meeting was witnessed by four Bicol DPWH executives led by Estrella and Rodulfo, who heard the VACC chairman telling the secretary, “Don’t you know secretary that the DPWH is the most corrupt in the region?”