TAGBILARAN CITY, Philippines—Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap was told by militant groups on Saturday to resign from his Cabinet post and abandon his bid for a Congress seat in Bohol following the plunder case filed against him.
The group Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) and Anakpawis party said Yap should resign from the Department of Agriculture and quit from running as candidate in the third district of Bohol because of the plunder case filed against him and 14 others over the purchase of P455 million in ice-making machines that were allegedly overpriced.
Yap should “exercise political delicadeza and instead focus on his defense against the plunder complaint and other criminal and administrative charges filed against him before the Office of the Ombudsman,” Pamalakaya national chair Fernando Hicap and Anakpawis secretary general Cherry Clemente said in a joint statement.
“If we are in his shoes we will leave the agriculture portfolio and drop the dream of becoming a lawmaker,” their joint statement said.
Last week, leaders of Pamalakaya and Anakpawis Representatives Rafael Mariano and Joel Maglunsod led the filing of a plunder complaint against President Macapagal-Arroyo, Yap and 13 others for the purchase of 98 ice-making machines which they claimed were overpriced by P2.3 million per unit.
Hicap and Clemente asked Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez to immediately place Yap and officials of the National Agribusiness Corp. (Nabcor) under preventive suspension while the Office of the Ombudsman is evaluating the complaint.
Nabcor said all transactions in the purchase of ice-making machines were transparent and above board.
Nabcor spokesperson Kathyrin Pioquinto said the accusations were “without basis, far from the truth and perjurious.”
Pioquinto also said Yap had nothing to do with the process although Nabcor is a government-owned and -controlled corporation attached to the DA.
“Yap is neither an officer nor a director of Nabcor,” Pioquinto said.
However, the militant groups said “the COA findings reveal the exact opposite.”
The militant groups said DA, through Nabcor, awarded a government contract to a lone bidder—the Integrated Refrigeration System and Services (IRSS)—in September 2009 for ice-making units at P4,650,000 per unit, or about P2.3 million higher compared to prevailing industry prices for the ice-making machines.
The government, the complainants said, can obtain 98 units of ice-making machines for P225 million to P230 million, or half of the what the DA spent for them.
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