A LEGAL officer of the Department of Public Works and Highways filed graft charges against the agency’s Bicol regional director before the Ombudsman over allegedly anomalous bidding and promotion of personnel.
Lawyer Oliver Rodulfo accused Bicol regional director Reynaldo Tagudando irregularly promoting officials and purportedly rigging the bidding for contracts.
Rodulfo wrote Public Works Secretary Mark Villar to ask that Tagudando be suspended pending the resolution of administrative and criminal complaints before the Ombudsman.
Rodulfo said Tagudando has been anointing officials for promotion instead of the regular and usual selection process for reasons only known to him.
He also accused the regional director of “rigged and fixed” by DPWH region V employees in the bids and awards committee secretariat and technical working group, with the winning bids always sticking to a 5-percent variance.
As for the implementation of projects, DPWH-Bicol has been deliberately and arbitrarily granting “unjustified” suspension orders and extensions despite the high percentage of slippages, Rodulfo claimed, citing the Masbate-Cataingan-Placer Road project, among others.
The lawyer also said that he is willing to testify despite knowledge that Tagudando is “moneyed, armed and dangerous,” according to the letter-complaint.
Rodulfo’s letter said corruption scandal at Bicol DPWH is in conspiracy with some divisions chief and cohorts that he appeals to the secretary to immediately relieved Tagudando so that a fair probe would take place adding I’m just too willing to be a witness.
He also filed before the Office of the Ombudsman two cases of administrative and criminal complaints against Tagudando and administrative officer V David Isabelo Alvarez involving an appointment of an outsider lawyer Felix Brazil, and two engineers, Marilou Sariba and Cornelio Relativo Jr. who were promoted from Engineer 3 to Engineer 4.