THANKS TO Facebook, the proverbial brevity of public memory gets routinely jolted by the website’s Memories, even at the most opportune moments in many instances.
As this Sept. 6, 2024 post in the Punto! FB page finding relevance in the current public discourse on spectral infrastructures:
FLOODWATERS UNEARTH INFRA SHORTCUTTING
Sheet piles of a diking system on a stretch of the Abacan River in Barangay Suclaban, Mexico were unearthed by erosion caused by the heavy downpour seemingly proving the suspicion of barangay officials – that the sheet piles were much short of specification. The site was reportedly a part of the P199.495-million “Project: Construction of Flood Control Abacan River Diking and Slope Protection Works” awarded to A.D. Gonzales Jr. Construction & Trading Company Inc., for construction within the period June 13, 2022 to June 7, 2023. Pampanga 3rd District representative and current House Senior Deputy Speaker Rep. Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales Jr., reportedly owner of the construction firm that bears his name, was haled to the Office of the Ombudsman in August 2023 by Mexico Association of Barangay Captains president Terence Napao, for alleged graft and corrupt practices over flood control projects including the one in Suclaban. Punto News Team/Contributed photos
In the https://sumbongsapangulo.ph/ list of flood control projects, three are entered as having been undertaken by A.D. Gonzales Construction and Trading Co. Inc., to wit:
1) the Abacan River diking and slope protection project in Mexico, Pampanga at a cost of P270.194 million reported completed on March 6, 2024; and
2) flood control works on the Pasig-Potrero River and the San Fernando-Bacolor section of the San Fernando-Sto. Tomas-Minalin Tail Dike at a cost of P257.255 million and completed on June 5, 2024. (Erroneously placed in La Union in the sumbong website).
3) Abacan River diking, also in Mexico but distinguished as Phase I, with a cost of P96.496 million and completed on Nov. 23, 2023.
Intriguingly, the tarpaulins at the project site eroded last year showed its cost at exactly P199,494,072.90, the construction period set June 13, 2022 to June 7, 2023.
Given that the sumbongsapangulo list covered projects from 2022 to 2024, where lies this failed project that merited the case filed by ABC-Mexico president Napao before the Ombudsman but was subsequently dismissed “for lack of evidence”? Incidentally, the barangay chair has announced that we would refile the case presently.
Are there more Abacan River projects awarded to A.D. Gonzales Construction & Trading than what has so far surfaced?
The ghost haunting continues.
