Accused in flood works mess missing; ‘manhunt’ on
Local law enforcers are tracking down five of the 18 accused individuals in an alleged flood control anomaly in Mindoro after the police serving arrest warrants failed to find them at their known addresses.
They are all implicated in a substandard P289.5-million road dike project in Naujan, Oriental Mindoro, together with former Ako Bicol Rep. Elizaldy Co, founder of Sunwest Corp., the company that bagged the public works contract.
The Quezon City Police District (QCPD) on Sunday reported that despite visiting all registered addresses of four of the accused, its operatives failed to serve the warrants because “none of the subjects were present during the attempts.”
The four are Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Region IV-B construction division chief Dominic Gregorio Serrano, bids and awards committee accountant IV Lerma Dotado Cayco, material engineer Timojen Adiong Sacar, and Sunwest board member Anthony Ngo.
A fifth accused, former DPWH Region IV-B assistant regional director and now DPWH Bureau of Maintenance director Gene Ryan Alurin Altea, was also missing after Albay police failed to serve an arrest warrant on him last Saturday.
Whereabouts unknown
The warrants were issued on Nov. 21 by three divisions of the Sandiganbayan, where the Office of the Ombudsman filed on Nov. 18 two counts of graft and one count of malversation through falsification regarding the Mindoro project.
According to the QCPD, its officers attempted to serve a warrant to Ngo on the evening of Nov. 21, but the caretaker at his listed residence stated that “the accused no longer resides at the address, and his whereabouts could not be determined.”
The following day, in a follow-up operation, police checked for Ngo at the Rolling Hills Subdivision, where his family said “they have had no communication with him since the issuance of the warrant and requested that further inquiries be directed through their legal counsel.”
On the same day, the police also visited the residences of Cayco, Sacar and Serrano.
Cayco’s relatives at a condominium in South Triangle told operatives that Cayco was “on leave and not at the premises,” the QCPD reported.
Meanwhile, security personnel at the two residences of Sacar confirmed that “he could not be located,” and his Pinyahan residence had already been vacant since August.
Serrano was also not found by police, and his neighbors claimed he was last seen “approximately two weeks before the issuance of the warrant.”
The QCPD vowed to intensify its follow-up operations, “including sustained district-wide manhunt efforts,” together with national agencies such as the Philippine Center on Transnational Crime-International Police, the Department of Justice, and the Department of the Interior and Local Government.
Meanwhile, the Daraga, Albay police went to Altea’s residence at around 3:56 p.m. on Saturday but he was nowhere to be found.
According to the Daraga police, his family said “they have no knowledge about his current whereabouts.”
Departures
The Bureau of Immigration (BI) on Sunday said it has ordered all immigration officers nationwide to be on heightened alert following the issuance of arrest warrants on Co and 17 others.
According to a statement by BI Commissioner Joel Anthony Viado, all individuals covered by the warrants have since been encoded into its centralized “derogatory database” to ensure that front-line officers can immediately flag, verify and respond should any of them attempt to depart from or enter the Philippines.
“Once intercepted, our officers are under strict instruction to promptly coordinate with the Philippine National Police for the proper and lawful execution of the warrants,” Viado said.
Meanwhile, Viado said that based on BI travel records, four of the individuals on the list are currently abroad.
Co departed for Singapore on Aug. 6; DPWH officer in charge/planning and design division chief Montrexis Tamayo left for Qatar on Nov. 15; Sunwest president and chair Aderma Angelie Alcazar traveled to Australia on Oct. 2; while Sunwest treasurer Cesar Buenaventura departed for the United Arab Emirates on the same day.
Viado said the BI remains fully aligned with law enforcement agencies to ensure that the warrants are executed once these individuals present themselves at the country’s ports.
Last Friday, Interior and Local Government Secretary Jonvic Remulla said Co and the other accused have until Monday, Nov. 24, to surrender to law enforcement agencies.
