ACCORDING to Sonny Trillanes, Sen. Bong Go’s father and half-brother were able to capture more than five billion pesos worth of government contracts in the first two years of the Duterte administration. This was when Senator Go was working as the special assistant to President Rodrigo Duterte.
If Trillanes is to be believed, these Go family firms increased their project portfolio by at least 10 times in the first two years of Duterte as President as opposed to the period before the Duterte-Go tandem got catapulted to the national corridors of power.
Go’s defense is not one of denial. He said these awards are legitimate as they “went through public bidding and proper procurement procedures in accordance with our laws.”
Are we to agree that the halo of power, pelf and influence enveloping Go were not factors in the award of these contracts? What quacks like a duck is actually a fighting cock?
Trillanes is threatening to file plunder charges against Go and Duterte the very moment there is a changing of the guards in 2022.
In early July, he posted a YouTube video where he quoted documents from the Department of Trade and Industry and the Commission on Audit in support of his contention that the construction company owned by Go’s father Desiderio Lim, CLTG Builders, cornered 27 projects worth P3.2 billion in 2017 alone, or just a year after Duterte assumed the presidency.
“Lahat ng mga projects na ‘to ay located sa Davao City at Davao Region lamang,” said the former senator.
Sen. Leila de Lima has also filed a resolution in the Senate seeking an investigation into these government contracts. She said that the upper chamber should look into the circumstances surrounding these contracts to determine whether acts of graft or plunder were committed in securing them.
The law on plunder penalizes with life imprisonment and perpetual absolute disqualification from holding any public office a public officer who, “by himself or in connivance with members of his family, relatives by affinity or consanguinity, business associates, subordinates or other persons, amasses, accumulates or acquires ill-gotten wealth through a combination or series of overt or criminal acts as described in Section 1(d) hereof, in the aggregate amount or total value of at least seventy-five million pesos (P75,000,000.00).”
The question would be whether these relatives have unjustly enriched themselves at the expense of the Filipino people by taking undue advantage of their relationship with Sen. Bong Go and the latter’s close connection to President Duterte.
This is not addressed by Go’s kneejerk response that there is nothing to show that he had personally benefitted from the government transactions secured by his father and brother with the government while he is in a position of power. Direct, personal benefit is not listed as an element of plunder committed through the accumulation of wealth of relatives and close associates.
That the awards went through the bidding process described in the procurement law does not make them immune to legal attacks. A post-Duterte Ombudsman and Justice Secretary may choose to take cues from the competition law passed during the time of President Noynoy Aquino.
The competition law (RA 10667) prohibits price fixing at public biddings and auctions. It also outlaws bid rotation, market allocation, as well as other analogous practices of bid manipulation.
An example is “bid rigging” whereby competing parties collude to choose the winner of a competitive bidding process while others submit an uncompetitive bid.
A new anti-corruption team under a new administration will have as a major challenge the investigation of the Go family’s capture of a substantial chunk of public infrastructure projects in the Davao region at a time when the Senator was working most closely with the President. Was the competition eased out or co-opted in all those procurement proceedings?/PN
