By JennelynMondejar
DAGUPAN
CITY – Charges over jueteng takes and plunder are now being aired by top
politicians and their supporters with the start of the campaign season in
Pangasinan.
Alaminos
City Mayor Hernani Braganza insisted last week no P4.7-billion plunder
complaint was filed against him before the Office of the Ombudsman.
Contrary
to reports, Braganza said what 15 incumbent and former barangay chiefs filed
with the Ombudsman was a mere letter-request for investigation against him and
15 other local officials.
“Until
today I do not know if I was sued of plunder or I was a victim of black
propaganda only because until today we have yet to receive a copy of an alleged
complaint by some barangay captains and former barangay captains of the city of
Alaminos in the Office of the Ombudsman,” he said in a press conference in a
restaurant here.
The mayor
was accompanied by his legal counsels, Efren Moncupa and Leonido Pulido, in the
press briefing.
“I have
no plunder case and I dare our friends from the media to write the truth that
there is no plunder case filed against me,” he said.
What he
received, according to Braganza, was an unsigned complaint distributed to
Manila reporters last week, adding there is a difference if what was filed in
the Ombudsman was a case or a mere request to be investigated.
“I
am saddened that our barangay captains misled our journalist-friends in
Manila,” Braganza, a former Press secretary, said in Filipino.
Braganza’s
lawyers said the document filed by the barangay chiefs last Friday was not a
valid criminal complaint “but a mere letter-request for investigation of
ongoing projects in Alaminos City.
“For us lawyers, this is misrepresentation and
an utter falsehood, an invention,” Moncupa said.
“What
they filed in the Ombudsman, they indicated ‘verified joint
complaint-affidavit,’” he said.
“What they are seeking
in the Ombudsman, not even one did they mention that Mayor Braganza committed
plunder. They have six requests, all of these they want the Ombudsman to
investigate on presumable commissions the mayor might have earned from the
projects like the airport, etc., constructed but they did not say that Mayor
Braganza committed plunder with the money involved,” Moncupa said.
For his part, Pulido
said, “I don’t want to call this a case; I’d rather call it a circus.”
Pulido said there is
no such case as “attempted plunder,” and for it to be plunder, two things must
happen: first, you pocketed the money and second, it reached P50 million.
Although he is ready
to answer the allegations, Braganza said he will file a perjury case against the
barangay captains who he tagged as the political lieutenants of his political
rival.
“Definitely I will
file a case against them. Either I see them in court or I see them in hell,” he
said.
Braganza described the
move of his opponents as “not a plunder case but a major case of political
blunder.”
“We are very much
ready to be investigated. I will face it squarely as a real man,” he
said.
Braganza said the
village chiefs submitted false statements before the Ombudsman. “How can they
claim that they have personal knowledge of the allegations when what they
submitted to the Ombudsman were merely lifted from the Alaminos City website
and from the accomplishment report of our city engineer’s office?”
Braganza said he has
yet to officially receive a copy of the document filed by the village chiefs
although he was able to get hold of documents furnished reporters during a
press briefing in Quezon City.
He said the press
conference was attended by lawyer AbrahanEspejo, the lead counsel of Gov. Amado
Espino Jr. in a plunder case filed against him by Bugallon Mayor Rodrigo Orduña
for allegedly receiving millions of pesos in jueteng payola.
Braganza said he does
not believe Espejo when he said that it was mere coincidence that he is the
lawyer of both Espino and the barangay heads.
Braganza described the
allegations against him as absurd and ridiculous. “Do I look like a
billionaire? Will a small-time city mayor accumulate billions of pesos from the
budget of his local government unit? Just absurd and ridiculous,” he said.
Mediamen tried to get
reactions from Espino’s camp through provincial information officer Orpheus
Velasco but failed.
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