ITOGON, Benguet – Benguet caretaker congressman and Anti-Crime and Terrorism through Community Involvement and Support (ACT-CIS) Party-list Rep. Eric Yap lashed back at his critics, particularly Commissioner Greco Beljica of the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) and self-styled politicians in the province, for being involved in witch hunting and trial publicity strategies to gang up on hi, ruin his image in the eyes of the people among other squid tactics that will help them advance their own personal and political interests.
Yap, who chairs the House committee on appropriations, stated the President Rodrigo Duterte was fair in publicly announcing the names of lawmakers who are allegedly involved in corruption activities in the public works department that included his name but the Chief Executive was quick in rebutting that there are no conclusive evidences that will directly link the lawmakers to the corruption activities.
He pointed out that in his case, the allegations of the PACC include his attempted pressure to Beljica to drop the case against former Ifugao district engineer Lorna Ricardo and his alleged interference in the conduct of bidding of infrastructure projects in favour of his chosen contractors.
For the record, the lawmaker disclosed that he called up the Commissioner to verify if Ricardo has a pending case before the said body and when Beljica informed him that Ricardo’s case was already referred to the Ombudsman, he already stopped from there and did not exert efforts to follow-up the matter and that he never endorsed the said ousted district engineer to any position inside and outside the province contrary to what had been maliciously pronounced by Beljica.
On the allegation that he had been intervening in the conduct of the bidding of infrastructure projects, Congressman Yap clarified that when he was appointed as the province’s legislative caretaker last January 20, 2020, the bidding of projects funded under the 2020 manual budget were already completed, thus, there was nothing to intervene about.
He asserted that what he wants is for the contractors to implement quality infrastructure projects beneficial to the people of the province because they deserve good roads, better farm to market roads and more waterworks projects to help advance the state of agriculture where farmers could benefit from.
Congressman Yap explained that he does not want to be tied up to such issues because what he wants is to deliver to the people genuine public service where the residents living in the far flung communities of the province will be able to receive the appropriate assistance from concerned government agencies and for them to feel that government is within their midst to attend to their basic needs.
Congressman Yap assured the people of Benguet that despite the controversies that he is facing, the delivery of public service will be sustained because what he wants is for people to be able to get the appropriate support from the concerned government agencies that will contribute in empowering them to be productive citizens of the country.
By Hent
