Demolished truth

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    “BOARD JUNKS ouster move vs. Luciano.”

    So read the text message I received late afternoon of June 22.

    With the newsman’s nose for intrigues, I naturally raised the issue the following day at the media conference called by Clark International Airport Corp. Executive Vice President Alexander Cauguiran.

    “Nothing of that sort happened,” was the EVP’s curt reply.

    No junking? But was there a move during the board meeting to oust Victor Jose “Chichos” Luciano from the CIAC presidency? I persisted.

    “Absolutely nothing,” a visibly irked but definitive Cauguiran insisted.

    At the subsequent media interview with Luciano – a spit away from Cauguiran’s office, the beleaguered CEO said there indeed was a document calling for his ouster that was passed around the members of the CIAC board during their meeting but it did not prosper as only one member signed it.

    So did Luciano see the document and the lone signatory?

    “I did not see it but I was informed about it.” That was his pained reply.

    So who was the lone signatory?

    “You should have asked EVP Cauguiran.”

    Worse than a chicken-or-egg proposition there, Luciano affirming what Cauguiran was absolutely negating.

    So Punto’s ace reporter Joey Pavia called CIAC Board Chairman Nestor Mangio.

    “Yes, there was a resolution calling for the resignation of President Luciano. I signed it. So did EVP Cauguiran,” Mangio told Pavia.

    “Yes, it was not pursued after CIAC Board adviser General Abaya proposed that an independent body be requested to thoroughly investigate the case before such resolution could be addressed,” Mangio furthered.

    One incident. Three versions. Obviously someone – if not everyone – is lying here.

    It is not only in that account of the CIAC board meeting that truth was apparently demolished.

    Even the power point presentation (PPP) of Cauguiran during the media conference was shot full of apparent lies.

    The fifth frame of the PPP read: 4. Documents submitted by PPGS and EMD reveal that 3 Aeta organizations sought the intercession of high-ranking officials in the Office of the President of the Philippines in requesting P/CEO VJIL to donate to them pre-identified scrap materials and the demolition of 17 old structures within the Civil Aviation Complex in order to generate funds for their various livelihood programs.

    The tenth frame read: CDC issued the corresponding Demolition Permits to the following aeta organizations:

    Bamban Aeta Tribal Association or BATA for the demolition of 4 structures (Bldgs. 7140, 7246, 7257, 7208)

    Association of Barangay Chieftains of the Aetas in Pampanga for the demolition of 8 structures (Bldgs. 7247, 7288, 7289, 7300, 7191, 7252, 7253, 7235)

    Aeta Tribal Community Vendor Group for the demolition of 2 structures (Bldgs. 7190 and 7268).

    Clearly, four structures to BATA, eight to the ABCAP, and two to the ATCVG total to only 14 demolished structures. As there were “17 old structures” recorded as having been demolished, where did the remaining three go?

    A staff at the CIAC engineering department was hurriedly summoned and hurriedly wrote on a torn leaf from a notebook additional three buildings going to the ABCAP. An act worthy of a Mandrake pulling a rabbit out of his top hat.

    Truth again was apparently scrapped in the accounting of the proceeds from the sale of scrap materials from the demolished buildings.

    One Josie Gomez, the self-appointed “agent” of the Aetas said she had already given the tribesmen some P9.5 million from the proceeds.

    The fact-finding committee headed by Mangio himself gathered that the “appraised value of the buildings from the prices that were quoted by the contractors and the advances given to the Aetas” reached about P33,518,009, “excluding contractors’ profit.”

    The total receipted amount given to the Aetas was a measly P344,750. Add the cost of the 300 sacks of rice also given to the tribes at P1,500 per sack totaling to P450,000 and the sum total would only be P794,750.

    A total of P32,723,259 is missing. A whopper there! Somebody’s made a killing!

    And Luciano since Day One has been saying the buildings had “absolute zero value in the CIAC books.”

    It looks to me that it is Truth that has absolute zero value in the CIAC books. So where lies Truth then? At the rubble of those demolished buildings.

    Shame.

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