Mejorada's letter names Defensor Jr. 'waste' chair
An otherwise ordinary official letter of communication to Iloilo Third District Board Member Arthur Defensor Jr. turned extraordinary.
Was it an honest mistake or was there deliberate intent to change a major word into another even more major word? The answer remains to be seen with Board Member Defensor Jr. expected to address the matter in today's regular session of the 9th Iloilo Sanggunian Panlalawigan (SP).
Letter-sender is top aide of Governor Niel Tupas Sr., Manuel Mejorada who signed such in his questioned capacity as "Provincial Administrator."
The two-paged letter received was sent out to Board Member Defensor as chairman of the "Committee on Waste and Means" and not the "Committee on Ways and Means." It was not immediately clear if Defensor Jr. took offense on the matter yet a copy obtained yesterday by The News Today (TNT) showed the word "Waste" marked.
Reached through text message, Mejorada said it was just a typographical error. He did not even notice that the word "ways" was written as "waste."
The letter has the controversial planned-loan of P380-million as subject. The amount sought by the Iloilo Provincial Government will be used for the construction of a six-storey Information Technology (IT) building.
The governor's aide was reminding the SP body on the hanging proposal for said project "as an economic enterprise and investment to attract business process outsourcing (BPO) businesses such as call centers into Iloilo."
The project implementation earlier got the nod of the previous SP with the governor's son, now Fifth District Representative Niel Tupas Jr. as major proponent.
"It is envisioned that the project will generate substantial net income to become a self-liquidating project of the province," the letter continued. "As such, it will pay for its own loan amortization and generate surplus income which the Province can utilize for the delivery of more services and projects." (With Erly Garcia)