Carcar mayor to police: Probe video allegedly using his voice talking about contractor’s ‘SOP’ for P149M project

Carcar City Mayor Patricio “Patrick” Barcenas says he will ask the police to investigate a video allegedly using his voice discussing the contractor promising an SOP of a multi-million project. | Contributed photo

LAPU-LAPU CITY, Philippines — Carcar City Mayor Patricio “Patrick” Barcenas will ask the Philippine National Police (PNP) to investigate a video that has proliferated on Facebook, where the mayor’s voice was allegedly used to talk about an alleged “SOP” from a contractor of a city government project.

Mayor Barcenas denied that the voice in the video was his and that the video claims were even false.

Barcenas again strongly denied the allegations on the video and called on the police to conduct an investigation and trace the person who was responsible for posting it on social media.

“Kana di na tinuod uy, pulos na mga kuan. Sige lang, kanang ako panang ipa-imbestigar unsa nang kuana,” Barcenas told CDN Digital.

(That is not true. That is all (false). I will let this be investigated.)

Carcar Mayor: Cybercrime law violated

Barcenas said that the person who posted the video had also violated the Cybercrime law.

“Numero uno nga basi nga ngano man nagkuan sila ana nga bawal man gani nang mag-ingon ana sa imong isig-katawo di ba? Naa manay balaod sa Cyber, bawal na siya,” he added.

(First, why did they post that (false video) when that is prohibited when they do that to another person, right? There is a law on cyber, and that is prohibited.)

The mayor reiterated that the details in the video were also incorrect, while the voice, which was allegedly similar to his voice, was not even consistent.

Mayor Barcenas was referring to the video where the voice allegedly of Barcenas asking the city council not to cancel the authority to enter into a contract with the contractor for the construction of a multimillion project.

The voice in the video also allegedly claimed that the contractor of the project was allegedly willing to give 10 percent as “SOP” from the total amount of the project of P149 million.

The project was approved months before the election during the previous administration, however, it was not implemented due to the election ban.

The project will be constructed near the new public market of Carcar City.

City Council plan

According to Valladolid Barangay Captain Anthony John Apura of the Association of Barangay Councils that the City Council was planning to cancel the authority to enter into a contract between the mayor and the contractor of the project on the Sept. 12, 2022 session.

Apura said that this was after they heard some alleged anomalies about the project.

Apura claimed that after their session on that date, where they planned to cancel the project, Barcenas suddenly appeared at the session hall.

Apura also said that the city council did not cancel the authority into a contract with the contractor and the mayor for the project.

He also assured that no alleged “SOP” was received by the City Council in not cancelling the authority of the mayor to enter into a contract with the contractor.

He said the project would be implemented because it had already been approved in the previous administration and that it already had a budget for its implementation.

As for the plan of Barcenas to ask for the investigation on the video on Facebook, Apura said that he and the city council would also want an investigation on that video.

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