Haresco exposed, not brokered, anomalous projects

THIS REFERS to a news article which reported that Kasangga Party-list Rep. Teodorico T. Haresco Jr. “largely brokered” three anomalous bridge projects that Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson recently recommended for deferment (Inquirer, 10/23/12).

The fact is Representative Haresco was instrumental in exposing the erring bridge suppliers. Records of the House of Representatives would show that in the privilege speech the congressman delivered on Oct. 8, 2012, he urged his fellow representatives to investigate British bridge suppliers Balfour Beatty and Austrian firm Waagner Biro. In response to his speech, Alfredo Marañon III, Florencio Miraflores, Joaquin Carlos Nava, Antonio del Rosario, Paolo Javier, Jeffrey Ferrer, Arthur Defensor, Mercedes Alvarez and Jerry Treñas filed House Resolution 2827 which called for the investigation of the bridge suppliers for massive cost overruns, delayed implementation of projects and collapsed bridges, among other issues.

To set the record straight, the information given in that Oct. 23 report is the exact opposite of the truth and is utterly untrue. It portrays Representative Haresco in an unfair and prejudicial light. For the record, Representative Haresco supports the Aquino administration’s anticorruption drive, which was precisely the reason he delivered the privilege speech calling for the investigation of the reported erring bridge suppliers.

We are elated to know that his call has not gone unheard, and the administration has taken steps toward disciplining the erring foreign suppliers. We hope that this letter will correct whatever false or wrong impressions the report might have created in the public mind.

—NORMAN O. TAYAG, chief of staff, Kasangga Party-list