Disierto to Probe Cuevas
Published in The Philippine Daily Inquirer
(January 25, 2000)
OMBUDSMAN Aniano Desierto said yesterday he would look into reports linking, Justice Secretary Serafin Cuevas to the controversial P 4billion land titling cormputerization project of the Land Registration Authorit y (LRA).
INQUIRER columnist Rainon Tulfo had alleged that Cuevas and his younger brother Felimon were stockholders of a firm belonging to the Mega Data Consortium that won the LRA contract.
LRA is an attached agency of the Department of Justice.
Desierto said he would check if Cuevas had holdings in the Amalgamated Management and Development Corp.(AMDC), the firm identified in Tulfo's, column.
But Cuevas denied that the firm had been involved in the biulding since it had long been dissolved.
AMDC, which was a Cuevas family enterprise, was in the business of trucking, including the hauling of gasoline in Saudi Arabia (not in computers or data management), when Cuevas was still in private practice.
Cuevas said the firm was dissolved in the 1980s.
The justice secretary said the company bad 'evaporated into thin air" 'after partners of the firm had duped his family. Cuevas also denied that he was a stockholder in his brother's firm, Amalgamated Motors Phils. Inc., (AMPI) a member of the Mega Data consortium.
"I don't have any interest there. I am neither an incorporator much less involved in any capacity with Amalgamated Motors," he said.
Asked if there was a grant of unwarranted benefits to Amalgamated Motors or to Mega Data Consortium, Cuevas said there was none.
"That contract is very clean," he said. "I have nothing to do with the management much less with the financial transaction of Amalgamated Motors. I am not an incorporator nor an official of the said corporation," he said.
But Cuevas said he was not sure whether his name was included in the firm.
He noted that his brother would usually put his name or that of his son just to complete the requirement on qualifying shares.
Two companies had questioned the results of the bidding for the LRAs titling computerization project.
They are AMA consortium and PMC Consortium which were "technically disqualified" by the LRA Pre-Bidding and Awards Committee on Dec. 9 last year.
D. S. CUETO
