By JOSEPH HOLANDES UBALDE
Interaksyon.com
EVEN before the inspection team approved the purchase of three overpriced helicopters that allegedly belonged to former First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo, top officials of the Philippine National Police have already recommended the purchase.
Senator Franklin Drilon, on Thursday’s Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing, presented a signed inspection report dated October 14, 2009 that showed several PNP officials giving the greenlight for the transaction.
“This shows how anomalous this deal was,” Drilon said.
According to Superintendent Claudio Gaspar Jr., one of the inspectors, the signed document reached him only on Oct. 23, nine days after it already went the rounds among various PNP officers.
“They already signed,” Gaspar added.
Drilon was irked by the process the PNP undertook for the purchase, saying that “due diligence” was visibly not practiced in the transaction.The senator assailed Chief Superintendent George Piano of the PNP’s Bids and Awards Committee who admitted that he had not thoroughly sifted through the transaction documents back in 2009.
Piano said he neither looked at the choppers’ flight logs, that would have showed these were pre-owned under Lionair Inc., nor checked the aircraft’s registration.
Aside from being part of the 16-man PNP Inspection Team that checked the choppers, Gaspar also piloted the two helicopters when these were used by the Arroyo family in 2004.
Gaspar said he frequently ferried then Pampanga Representative Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo to Pampanga using the LionAir helicopter with serial number 1372 in 2004.
In his expose, Lacson said the prices of the refurbished helicopters were marked up by at least six times the standard price at the time the purchase was sealed on September 24, 2009.
Lacson said his investigation showed the two Robinson R44 Raven 1 choppers had already been extensively used by several people, including former President Arroyo and her family, before being sold to the PNP.
Lacson said the two choppers were already five years old and valued at only $100,000 (roughly P4 million) based on 2004 standards, and $348,000 (roughly P17 million) by 2011 standards.
Only one of the choppers was actually brand new and would cost $348,000 or about P18 million by 2011 prices.
But the PNP bought the three aircraft from Maptra for P104.9 million (or P30 million each) in 2009.
The committee called for an investigation into the so-called overpriced choppers to determine whether the purchase of these aircraft during the Arroyo administration was a violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act or Republic Act 3019.
