DPWH officials slapped with 12-yr jail term over faulty dam

MANILA, Philippines – The anti-graft court slapped 3 officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) with 6- to 12- year jail term over the faulty construction of an irrigation dam in Camarines Sur over two decades ago.
 
The Sandiganbayan 2nd Division found DPWH project manager Tomas Buen, and Engineers Galileo Fortaleza and Victor Sangabol guilty of graft for allowing gross deviations in the construction design of the P21.25 million Nabua Dam and Reservoir Project in Nabua, Camarines Sur.

The crucial project was constructed from December 6, 1989 to May 5, 1992. However, just 19 months after completion, the dam was declared in danger of “imminent collapse” after Typhoon Puring hit the area in the second week of December 1993.

This led then President Fidel Ramos to order the forced evacuation of 4,219 families threatened by floods in 11 barangays in the municipalities of Baao and Nabua and Iriga City.

The DPWH conducted investigations, which revealed glaring faults in the dam’s construction.

Fortaleza, then the resident field engineer, was found to have issued a certificate of completion confirming that the dam was “duly inspected and found to have been completed in accordance with plans, specifications and terms and conditions of the contract.”

The court noted testimonies of experts that the accused engineers allowed the following deviations:

• use of smaller boulders for the riprap walls
• irregular thickness of the riprap wall from 400 millimeters to as thin as 200 mm when the design called for a 900 mm uniform wall
• lining of extension apron used small-sized stones rather than the required 500 mm boulders
• the base-width of the dam was less the specified 176 meters

 
“These prominent deviations, which certainly played a heavy role in the ill-construction of the dam such that it failed to withstand the impact of two typhoons, could not have been committed had accused Fortaleza and Sangabol been faithful in their supervisory work over the construction,” the court said.
 
“Evident bad faith is likewise appreciated in the case of accused Project Manger Tomas Buen, who was tasked with verifying the accuracy of the Statement of Work Accomplished,” the court added.

The 43-page decision penned was page by the Second Division chairperson Associate Justice Teresita V. Diaz-Baldos. Associate Justices Napoleon E. Inoturan and Oscar C. Herrera Jr. concurred with the ruling. – Rappler.com