Updated May 30, 2018, 7:17 AM
By Ben Rosario

The National Housing Authority (NHA) has suspended 20 contractors and placed under preventive suspension a number of its executives and employees in connection with the on-going investigation into irregularities that attended the housing projects for victims of supertyphoon Yolanda and the Zamboanga City siege of 2013.

But Negros Oriental Rep. Albee Benitez, chairman of the House Committee on Housing and Urban Development said the action taken by General Manager Marcelino Escalada only deserves“half commendation.” The other half, Benitez said will come when the culprits are criminally charged and blacklisted from all government housing projects.

“At the end of the day, it is still a question of how we hold people accountable. NHA must have a bigger role to play because they are the lead agency in this project,” said Benitez.

Escalada told the House panel he has issued show cause orders to 50 contractors to explain why they should not be held accountable for various offenses.

“Eight to ten are involved in having multiple awards in the past. We are also conducting regular inspection and monitoring of all our housing projects,” Escalada reported at the resumption of the hearing on the Zamboanga City housing fraud.

Benitez earlier demanded the immediate suspension of contractors and NHA personnel involved in the fraudulent construction of substandard housing units and facilities for victims of natural and man-made disasters.

NHA, he said must be ready to suspend erring contractors should criminal charges be recommended against them for hoodwinking government by constructing substandard housing units for the victims.

Altered materials

The senior administration lawmaker initiated the House inquiry on the Zamboanga City housing after he, along with Mayor Beng Climaco, Rep. Celso Lobregat and an inspection team, fell into the murky creek in the Barnaga Rio Hondo housing project when a newly-built wooden bridge they were walking on collapsed.

Benitez and other lawmakers also noted alterations in the materials used in building bridges and stilt houses for at least 3,000 displaced victims of the 2013 Zamboanga City siege.

Officials of the Limestone Construction admitted that acacia hardwood was used as post for the bridgeinstead of Gmelina wood or its equivalent provided in the contract.

While the price difference between the two materials is insignificant, it was later discovered that there had been a change in the preferred wood.

Witness Eliseo Aureliado, a representative of Metro Stone Ridge Corporation, disclosed that his company used tambulihan hardwood in a previous Zamboanga City stilt housing project instead of gmelina which is cheaper than tambulihan.

NHA Project Manager Alma Valenciano said the mentioned wood materials are acceptable but tambulihan had been dropped as a preferred material because of a ban imposed by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

Benitez also noted similar concerns on substandard housing projects for Yolanda victims.

Illegal deduction

In the same hearing, lawmakers also started looking into the alleged unauthorized deduction of the P10,000 cash grant from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for families affected by the Zamboanga City siege.

Rep. Rodel Batocabe and Lobregat decried the P6,500 deduction from the P10,000 cash assistance given to at least 2,620 displaced families in the city.

Testifying before the committee, Esmeralda Samson admitted deducting P6,500 from each of the family which was reportedly used for fees in the installation of electricity for houses which were awarded to the families.

But a representative of the Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative disputed Samson’s claim, saying power installation only costs P1,000 inclusive of all charges.