DAVAO CITY — A group calling themselves Concerned Land Owners of Davao City has officially transmitted their complaint before the office of the President and Highways Secretary Mark Villar about a syndicate reportedly involving top officials and personnel inside the Department of Public Works and Highways XI (DPWH-XI).
Newsline has received a copy of the letter-complaint which we are publishing as written.
MARK A. VILLAR
SECRETARY
Department of Public Works and Highways
Manila, Philippines
Dear Sir,
This is a letter from concerned citizens/landowners here in Davao City and we want to tell the illegal practices of the personnel of Region XI legal department in the facilitation and negotiation of the ROW claims particularly the Davao Bypass Road – JICA project.
We would like to tell you these facts for your understanding, how these personnel gets money from ignorant landowners.
Since the start of the surveying of land affected by the said project in 2019, several personnel of DPWH legal department has been approaching property owners that will be affected by such Davao City bypass road – JICA project.
During the course of such visitation, these personnel went “house to house” and lured the lowly landowners offering that they will swiftly facilitate the claims by virtue of 60-40 arrangements in favor of a certain financer and DPWH.
They told the landowners that they will provide a certain “financer” where he will advance 100% of the “alleged claim” (no offer yet) to avoid the unreasonable delay of collecting the claim uttering: “kung kamo mag facilitate sa claim mam abtan gyud mog syam2”.
The representative of the legal department name-dropped the “Vice Mayor” of the city as the one who will provide the financer uttering: “Apil ani si VM Basti, sya ang mohatag ug financer para mapadali inyon claim para dili na mo maglinya sa office”.
If any of us do not accept the terms, it will prohibit others from claiming their respective claims thus we need to cooperate uttering: “Kung dili ninyo dawaton ang arrangement dili gyud ni ma bayran ang uban, malangan gyud tanan. Ako pa ninyo sugot namo”.
Some landowners accept the terms due to such threat, afraid of being delayed by the very institution that will facilitate these claims.
The 60% share shall cover the following percentages 10% -RD, 10%-LEGAL, 10%-CENTRAL, 30%-FINANCER/AGENT
Upon acceptance of such an offer the legal department head will draft a MOA and SPA and will be signed by the spouses’ landowner in favor of the FINANCER/AGENT who will secure the other percentages. The financer will advance the payment then the legal department will prioritize those who executed a MOA and SPA and swiftly endorse a letter request for fund leaving those who did not commit in their offer and living them helpless.
We suspect that these MOA and SPA files are with the computers or storage of the regions legal department which you must be very careful.
With the foregoing events, it seems that there is something strange going around which affects the credibility of other departments concerned which needs to be investigated.
The style of negotiation is tolerated by the legal department thus an indication that they are using the delays of the department to take advantage of the misery of the landowners affected by these ROW claims
Bringing this issue to the public will definitely open the flood gates of public scrutiny like what happened to other agency in the latest news
We hope your office will correct these mistakes as soon as possible by taking steps to take out these personnel away from Davao City.
Looking forward to your expeditious support and action against corrupt practices.”
The letter was sent to the Office of the President and to Secretary Villar on Monday, October 26, 2020.
