GMA, son Dato sued for plunder over ’08 P3-B ‘gift’
A PARTY-LIST group yesterday filed a plunder complaint against Rep. Diosdado “Dato” Arroyo and his mother, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, for the alleged reckless use of P3 billion in public funds to pave the way for and promote the candidacy of Dato in Camarines Sur.
The group Sanlakas, in a complaint filed at the Ombudsman, said Mrs. Arroyo spent P3 billion of public funds on projects in the second district of Camarines Sur as a “birthday gift” to Dato during his 34th birthday and in anticipation of the creation of the second district then.
The complaint said on Sept. 4, 2008, Mrs. Arroyo traveled to Libmanan, Camarines Sur, and, on the occasion of Dato’s birthday, announced that she had lined up P3 billion worth of projects until 2010.
“The shameless and unconscionable use of the people’s money was done in order to create for then presidential son, Dato Arroyo, a political bailiwick in the province of Camarines Sur,” the complaint said.
The complaint said the projects consist of a reforestation program, a dam, irrigation works and a sky bridge project that would have connected Libmanan town in Dato’s district to Canaman to shorten the travel time to Naga City.
The projects were to be completed within 18 months, in time for the 2010 elections. None of the projects, however, had been completed within the time frame given by Malacañang.
Roberto “Argee” Guevarra, one of the complainants and Sanlakas legal counsel, said the Skybridge 1 and 2, which served as Dato Arroyo’s centerpiece campaign promise in the 2010 elections, were never completed and were never intended to be completed.
The Skybridge project, he said, was a scam all along, and was designed to ensure that any release for the P900-million project “will be liquidated in the form of a 30-percent ‘SOP’ and used to bankroll Dato Arroyo’s 2010 congressional bid.”
Guevarra also revealed that Sanlakas members from Camarines Sur brought him to the bridge site and that upon his ocular inspection, “the only thing that could be seen was the sky and a river—but no bridge.”
Lawyer Renecio “Luke” Espiritu, cocounsel in the plunder complaint, said anomalies were evident in the project known in Camarines Sur as the P700-million “Dato Dam.”