THE Justice Department has approved the prosecution of the officials of a consortium that cornered the P3.8-billion contract from the Land Transportation Office in the previous administration to produce new license plates.
The department’s prosecutors found probable cause to hold the officials of the domestic firm Power Plates Development Concepts Inc. (PPDCI) and Dutch company J. Knieriem B.V. Goes (JKG) liable for estafa through falsification of commercial documents, false testimony and perjury and violation of the Government Procurement Act.
The department found merit in the complaint filed by the Anti-Trapo Movement in August 2013 which alleged that the officials of PPDCI-JKG consortium ‘‘have consciously, intentionally and purposely submitted to an official government exercise what they know is an insufficient document and passing the same as authentic and accurate.
A preliminary investigation indicated that the respondents, led by the consortium’s corporate secretary Ron Salo and managing director Christian Calalang, submitted to the Bids and Awards Committee a document that they said was the audited financial statement of JKG as a requirement for the bidding for the Motor Vehicle License Plate Standardization Program (MVLPSP).
“However, upon careful examination of the said document, it turned out that it is not the audited financial statement of JKG,” says the department’s resolution.
“What the respondents submitted during the bidding were the 2011 Annual Accounts of the Respondent JKG issued by the Chamber of Commerce of The Hague, The Netherlands, the 2011 Consolidated Accounts of H3 BV.”
The investigating fiscal cited as proof a letter from respondent Calalang where he “admitted that they submitted the financial statement of H3 BV, the parent company of JKG.
“Thus, JKG and PPDCI submitted a falsified 2011 Annual Report and claimed it to be the audited financial statement of JKG because none such audited financial statement exists,” the resolution says.
“Or if one exists, the contents will show that JKG is not qualified to bid for the DOTC-LTO project. This would be the reasonable conclusion especially since the respondents did not submit their countervailing evidence showing their financial capability to undertake the project.”
The department held that the executives of the consortium “used the said falsified document to the DOTC-BAC to qualify as a bidder in the DOTC-LTO project and eventually they were awarded with the contract for the Supply and Delivery of Motor Vehicle License Plates for the LTO Motor Vehicle License Plate Standardization Program.
‘‘The respondents thus committed falsification and use of falsified documents during the bidding of the said DOTC-LTO project when they issued in an authenticated form a document purporting to be a copy of an original document when no such original exists, or including in such a copy a statement contrary to, or different from, that of the genuine original.”