Fourteen executives of airport operator GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. (GMCAC) on Monday, Nov. 8, 2021, said they will challenge their indictment for violation of the anti-graft and anti-dummy laws.
The GMCAC executives, in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange late Monday afternoon, said they received a copy of the Ombudsman resolution on Nov. 5.
Prior to this, however, they said they had not received any subpoena or order directing them to submit their counter-affidavits.
"As a result, the private respondents were not given the opportunity to present their defenses and participate in the preliminary investigation," they stated.
The Office of the Ombudsman, in a resolution issued on July 20, 2021, found probable cause against former Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA) general manager Steve Y. Dicdican and the 14 GMCAC directors and officers for violation of Section 3(e) of Republic Act No. 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.
They allegedly acted in conspiracy with one another to allow foreign nationals to perform executive functions, particularly to manage and operate the Mactan-Cebu International Airport in violation of the Anti-Dummy Law.
Those indicted were Manuel Louie B. Ferrer, Edgar B. Saavedra, Oliver Y. Tan, Jez Dela Cruz, Srinivas Bommidala, P. Sripathy, Vivek Singhai, Andrew Acquaah-Harrison, Ravi Bhatnagar, Ravishankar Saravu, Michael Lenane, Sudarshan MD, Kumar Gaurav, Magesh Nambiar, and Rajesh Mandan.
Megawide and its partner GMR from India were awarded in 2014 the 25-year public private partnership contract to upgrade MCIA and operate its landside facilities, including Terminal 2 (T2) which it built and opened in July 2018.
"Megawide, its directors and officers, maintain that they exercise good corporate governance and adhere to all applicable laws, rules and regulations in all its dealings," the company told the PSE.
Dicdican was suspended in December 2020 for 6 months. He was replaced by Glenn Napuli, who was himself suspended in July 2021 for allegedly failing to submit to the Ombudsman copies of the contract between MCIAA and GMCAC. Napuli has been replaced by Julius G. Neri, Jr. (Ventures Cebu)