Road right of way payments in GenSan only P2.8B, not P8.7B, says DPWH lawyer

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) on Tuesday clarified that it paid only P2.8 billion as road right of way payments for General Santos City, and not P8.7 billion.

At the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability hearing, lawyer Jahara Macadato of DPWH Region XII was asked to clarify the allegations of whistleblower Roberto Catapang Jr.

Catapang has exposed the alleged irregularities in right of way claims from a road project in General Santos City involving P8.7 billion.

But Macadato said it was not exactly P8.7 billion as what has been alleged.

"For the record, it was not P8.7 billion total amount paid for General Santos City, but only, in our records, P2.8 billion," she said.

It was Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II who first bared the existence of a road right of way scam in General Santos City in a press conference on November 24, 2017.

A criminal syndicate purportedly used fake titles under the name of non-existent persons to claim from the DPWH the just compensation from the expropriation of land which would be supposedly occupied by government projects.

Late in November last year, Catapang implicated Eldon Cruz, the brother-in-law of former President Benigno Aquino III, in the alleged P8.7-billion road right-of-way scam. He said Cruz's name was frequently used by the syndicate in seeking compensation for road right of way intended for rightful owners who were affected by the construction of a national highway in General Santos City.

Cruz's son Jiggy called his father's implication in the alleged scam "absurd and ridiculous." He said his father's supposed signature on the letter shown by Catapang to the DOJ was forged.

Citing Catapang's claims, Aguirre tagged former Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson and former Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, along with other officials from various government offices, as having enabled the work of a “criminal syndicate” that claimed compensation from the DPWH using fake land titles bearing the names of “non-existent persons.” — MDM, GMA News