Graft allegations swirling in the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, or LTFRB, have sucked in Secretary Jaime Bautista of the Department of Transportation, or DoTr, who filed cybercrime complaints against Mar Valbuena, president of transport group Manibela, and Ira Panganiban, a broadcast journalist.
Bautista personally went to the Department of Justice on Tuesday to file the charges. Justice Undersecretary Nicholas Felix Ty received the complaint.
Bautista fired back at his accusers, saying, “They have so many accusations that I accepted money, bribes, which are not true. I just want to clear my name, which I protected for almost 45 years.”
Transport group Manibela and former LTFRB information officer Jeff Gallos Tumbado had implicated Bautista in an alleged bribery scheme.
In response to the allegations, Bautista said, “I am saddened by the baseless allegations being thrown at me that I’m involved in corruption. Please allow me to categorically say that I never accepted any money or favor since assuming the post of Transportation secretary.”
Valbuena recounted that Tumbado had claimed that suspended LTFRB chairperson Teofilo Guadiz III delivered the money to Bautista as part of a “route for sale” scheme.
Tumbado has since recanted his corruption allegations, attributing it to “impulse, irrational thinking, and misjudgment.”
Desperate move
“I cannot allow myself to be the subject of another’s desperate attempt to attain fame, especially when malicious, baseless, and untruthful statements are hurled against me if only to blemish my untarnished track record and reputation of excellence and integrity,” Bautista said in the charge sheet.
Responding to the Bautista’s complaint, Valbuena, in a video message, said he is ready to face the secretary.
“That’s why I went to Crame because I also have a family, and I want people to know what you’re doing. Don’t be sensitive because you are a public official. When you are accused, you must answer. I am ready to face you anywhere,” Valbuena said in Filipino.
Meanwhile, Panganiban, a broadcast journalist, said he was unaware of the source of Bautista’s complaint and clarified that he merely reported the news without additional knowledge or involvement.
“I don’t know where he is coming from because I was just reporting the news just like everyone else. What I have been posting were documents of both the accusations and recantation of Jeff Tumbado. If you say libel or defamation, that’s not it,” Panganiban said in a video.