LTO chief chided in House probe

The House Committee on Transportation is asking Land Transportation Office (LTO) chief Virgina Torres to explain why she has taken sides in the takeover battle of Stradcom Corporation by refusing to pay the company P750 million in fees for the last five months.

Committee chair and Southern Leyte Rep. Roger Mercado said that Torres should clarify why she has taken the side of a group led by Bonifacio Sumbilla and Aderito Yujuico who briefly took over the operations of Stradcom, LTO’s system provider, last December.

Mercado said that Torres has refused to heed two memos of the Department of Transportation and Communication providing for the payment of P750 million to Stradcom, chaired by former Finance Secretary Roberto de Ocampo and managed by Cezar Quiambao.

He said that failure to meet government obligations in a multibillion-peso contract could have an adverse effect on investor confidence in the country especially with the government inviting foreign and local investors to put their money in the public-private partnership projects.

In a hearing on Tuesday, Mercado said Torres could not explain why the group she was apparently backing could show no proof to support its claim that they were the real owners of Stradcom. Sumbilla presented as proof a photo copy of Stradcom’s general information sheet. The lawmakers were quick to point that anybody could manufacture such documents and that both Sumbilla and Yujuico were nowhere in the company’s stock and transfer book.

“You are fooling us! You are degrading this committee!” Mercado told Sumbilla. (report Gil C. Cabacungan Jr./Philippine Daily Inquirer)