Del Rosario-Bermejo ‘war’ getting worse

By FELIPE V. CELINO

ROXAS City – The rift between the two trusted allies of Sen. Mar Roxas II is getting worse, with both trading serious accusations against each other.

Capiz 1st District Cong. Antonio del Rosario accused Mayor Vicente Bermejo of constructing a P3.3-million project that never materialized when he was the governor of the province.

Bermejo, for his part, exposed what he claimed to be a case of payroll padding involving several casual employees, and questionable financial assistance when the congressman was still the mayor of the city.

Del Rosario said he has documents showing that Bermejo had a “ghost” project – the Baybay Lawis-Culasi road that was supposedly done in two phases.

The first phase would have covered 300 meters of road worth P1.992 million while the second phase involved the construction of a 200-meter road section worth P1.342 million, he claimed.

Del Rosario said the documents made it appear that the project was started on June 1, 2007 and was completed on June 30 of the same year.

Bermejo denied that the road project was non-existent, and accused del Rosario of politicking.

He said the project was a road construction, not concreting, and was part of the circumferential road located in Sitio Monchit leading to a proposed relocation site in Culasi Nuevo.

Bermejo said the project was one of the 45 projects undertaken by the provincial government for the months of February to June 2007.

He also said the project was exempted from the election ban because it was already “obligated” and that the bidding had been conducted already.

But Board member Enrique Martin told Panay News that the project pointed by Bermejo was not the project stated in the documents.

On the other hand, del Rosario denied there was padding of the casual employees' payroll when he was the mayor./PN