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Watchdog: COA exec’s wife linked to contractor of agency’s new HQ
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Watchdog: COA exec’s wife linked to contractor of agency’s new HQ

The contract for a new building of the Commission on Audit’s (COA) headquarters had been awarded to a contractor with ties to the wife of one of its own commissioners already linked to anomalous public works projects, according to a watchdog group.

Records reviewed by the Right to Know, Right Now (R2KRN) coalition showed that the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) awarded a P959-million contract for the new COA building in its central office in Quezon City in 2021 to the joint venture of R.U. Aquino Construction and Development Corp. and Le Bron Construction.

Le Bron Construction, a sole proprietorship, is the main joint venture (JV) partner of Olympus Mining and Builders Group Phils. Corp., a construction company headed by Marilou Laurio Lipana, wife of COA Commissioner Mario Lipana.

A review of Olympus’ DPWH contracts from 2023 to 2025 showed that it entered into JVs with Le Bron in nine out of its 22 contracts during that period.

Le Bron’s authorized managing officer is Moises Nicdao, who is also among the incorporators of another firm, Iron Ore, Gold and Vanadium Resources Inc. (IOGVRP), where Mrs. Lipana, through her maiden name Marilou G. Laurio, was listed as president based on an offshore mining project scoping document in 2021.

Ramon Aris Lipana is also listed as IOGVRP incorporator based on Securities and Exchange Commission records, though it is unclear how he is related to Commissioner Lipana.

Le Bron itself holds a sizable public works portfolio, with around 235 DPWH contracts across Luzon and the Visayas from 2016 to 2025 worth a total of P15 billion, according to the DPWH infrastructure website.

R2KRN noted that the firm was blacklisted from July 31, 2017, to July 7, 2018, but was still awarded 21 contracts worth P514.3 million between 2017 and 2018.

“There is little question [that] the Lipanas and Nicdao have ties that they have parlayed into a web of contracts across multiple types of infrastructure projects and supplies of various goods and services, usually as joint-venture partners,” R2KRN said.

R2KRN is a network of advocates from the academe, labor sector, the youth, civil society organization and media campaigning for the passage of the Freedom of Information (FOI) law and the promotion of FOI practice in the country.

On medical leave

Although Commissioner Lipana was not yet part of the commission when the new COA building contract was awarded, R2KRN noted that he was already a senior COA officer then.

Before his appointment as commissioner, Lipana, a San Ildefonso, Bulacan native, headed the COA regional office in Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon or Region IV-A) and concurrently led the Intelligence and Confidential Fund Audit Office, which reviews the liquidation and use of confidential and intelligence funds by national and local agencies.

The Inquirer on Tuesday called Commissioner Lipana’s office to seek his comments on R2KRN’s revelations but was told by his staff that he was still on medical leave.

The 1987 Constitution bars members of constitutional commissions from having any financial interest, direct or indirect, in businesses that may be affected by their office’s functions.

Republic Act No. 6713, or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees, expounds on this obligation by requiring divestment upon assumption of office and forbidding the transfer of interest to spouses and relatives within the fourth degree of consanguinity.

“Viewed against these legal standards, the circumstances surrounding Commissioner Lipana and his wife raise serious questions of conflict of interest,” read the R2KRN report written by Nepomuceno Malaluan, Malou Mangahas and Jenina Joy Chavez.

Even if Commissioner Lipana had no role in auditing DPWH projects involving his wife’s company, R2KRN argued that it “still stands that the new headquarters of the nation’s audit institution was awarded to a contractor that had a business association with the family of one of its senior officials.”

“This betrays the deeper institutional entanglements that now confront COA,” it said. “Indeed, while a new home for the country’s supreme audit institution was being built, the very foundations of its independence were being eaten away like wood by termites from within.”

Infra partnership

The Le Bron-Olympus partnership extended far beyond the COA compound, the coalition added.

See Also

From 2016 to 2025, Olympus bagged P1.89 billion worth of infrastructure projects from the DPWH—mostly flood control structures and access roads in Bulacan—including nine JVs with Le Bron Construction.

Many of these projects fell under Bulacan’s first district engineering office, whose former officials Henry Alcantara and Brice Ericson Hernandez have admitted before the Senate blue ribbon committee to kickbacks, bid rigging, and substandard and “ghost” projects.

In his sworn statement to the Senate on Sept. 23, Alcantara claimed that Commissioner Lipana personally requested a list of flood control projects for Bulacan and later managed to insert P500 million worth of these into the 2023 unprogrammed appropriations, followed by P400 million in 2024 and another P500 million in 2025.

Former DPWH Undersecretary Roberto Bernardo confirmed in an affidavit that Lipana had sought introductions to Bulacan DPWH officials.

Ombudsman probe

The Office of the Ombudsman earlier confirmed that it was now conducting a fact-finding investigation into Commissioner Lipana since these allegations surfaced.

Sen. Francis Pangilinan said this could constitute an impeachable offense for Lipana, who was appointed by former President Rodrigo Duterte in 2022 and whose term is set to expire in 2027.

In light of these new allegations, R2RKN challenged the COA to “to apply its own ethical and administrative standards impartially. Whether through formal inquiry, recusal, or administrative review, its leadership and personnel must address questions that reach deeply into its own credibility as the nation’s guardian of fiscal integrity.”

Meanwhile, the coalition also called on the DPWH to review the contracts involving Olympus, as well as its JVs and related contractors, and for Congress to exercise its exclusive authority to initiate impeachment proceedings if the facts establish ethical or constitutional violations.

At the same time, R2KRN called on the Independent Commission for Infrastructure to look into the connection between Lipana, COA, Olympus and Le Bron, especially since one of the contracts involved one of COA’s own infrastructure.

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