De Guzman filed an estafa case against Arturo Barrameda, project manager of the TCGI Engineering consultant group involved in the construction of the TPLEx.
The case was filed yesterday before the Tarlac prosecutor’s office.
De Guzman was hired as consultant by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and PIDC, owner of the ongoing TPLEx project.
In an interview, De Guzman said he was tasked to oversee the construction of the 80-kilometer TPLEx superhighway.
He said that his conflict with Barrameda was an offshoot of his issuance of “non-compliance certificates” to TCGI Engineering on toll facilities and TCS the firm had installed.
“Barrameda wanted me to certify these (toll facilities and TCS) as compliant (with government standards). But as a whole, there was no compliance with the specifications for toll facilities and TCS,” De Guzman noted.
“The TCS were defective, not interconnected and did not pass the Site Acceptance Tests (SAT) conducted jointly with the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) and the DPWH,” he stressed.
De Guzman said that “As they are, no one knows how many vehicles enter and leave the TPLEx tollgates and how much is actually collected in toll fees at any given time. The system is manual not automated TCS, and the CCTV cameras at not working.”
De Guzman also accused TCGI Engineering of other anomalies.
During the opening of TPLEx package 1-B extending from Gerona to Moncada and Anao, Tarlac, they merely transferred the TCS machine from the Victoria toll gate and two more from the Tarlac City toll plaza and installed them at Moncada- Anao exit,” he said.
De Guzman also said that “based on technical specification and evaluation report, all of the TPLEx TCS machines installed are non-compliant.”
The TPLEx portion spanning Tarlac City to Urdaneta City, Pangasinan, is already finished and is being extended up to Rosario, La Union.
Upon completion, the entire TPLEx will cut by two hours the travel time between Manila and Baguio City.
De Guzman said that while he has already detached himself from the TPLEx project, Barrameda has been using his name in reports being submitted to the DPWH.
There are reports that 85 percent of some P320 million allotted for the TCS project had already been paid despite lack of certificate of compliance.
“Nothing at all was compliant with the TCS,” De Guzman said.
