Big firms profiting from projects in disaster-hit areas?

Unpaid private subcontractors detailed yesterday during a Senate inquiry how large construction firms make huge profits out of unfinished government housing projects in disaster-hit areas.

The wasted public funds could reach P30 billion over the last seven years, according to Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito, chairman of the Senate committee on urban planning and housing that conducted its third hearing into the irregularities of the National Housing Authority (NHA) projects for provinces hit by typhoons Yolanda in 2013, Pablo in 2012 and Sendong in 2011, as well as the Zamboanga siege in 2013 and the shelter programs for uniformed personnel.

Ejercito also presented yesterday several whistle-blowers who were subcontractors asked by their principals to build houses in various calamity-hit areas for as cheap as P120,000 per unit when the original price to be paid by the NHA was from P240,000 to P290,000 per unit.

The presentation of whistleblowers belied the claim of several NHA contractors who, in May this year, testified that they have not tapped subcontractors to do the projects for them in compliance with government rules.

“Substandard materials were used not because the budget is small but because contracts were passed around. Worse, some were not paid by their main contractors even for laboronly contracts at P20,000 to P25,000 per unit,” Ejercito said.

One witness, Camilo Salazar, recounted that when Yolanda struck he was on vacation from his work as an engineer in the Middle East. He added that it was sometime in August 2016 that a certain Rizalina Almazan asked him to supply heavy equipment units for the construction of houses.

He said he later found that Almazan was a subcontractor of a construction company named J.C. Tayag Builders Inc., thus making him the third layer of those working in the housing projects.

Salazar, who has decades of experience in construction projects, told the panel that he already noticed some irregular procedures in the project implementation.

He also pointed out that in October of that year, he already experienced difficulty in getting payment from Almazan, who later could no longer be located. When he dug deeper, he found that Almazan was having financial difficulties of her own as the J.C. Tayag also refused to pay her.