The Philippine Reclamation Authority has thrown its full support to Public Estates Authority Tollway Corp. (PEATC) officer-in-charge Dioscoro Esteban Jr. following the filing of a complaint by the Cavitex Infrastructure Corp. (CIC) against him for allegedly misrepresenting the firm and for allegedly maligning the CIC as “corrupt.”
PRA chairman Alexander Lopez said PEATC has asked the Court of Appeals to issue a writ of mandamus to compel private contractor CIC to hand over the full operation and management of the Manila Cavite Toll Expressway Project (MCTEP) to PEATC since the operation and maintenance agreement and voting trust agreement have expired on August 2021.
For his part, Esteban said he has the approval of the PRA Board since PEATC is its subsidiary.
PEATC spokesman Ariel Inton said the complaint against Esteban were meant to “divert the real issue” that is “to recover the operation and collection of fees that rightfully belongs to the PEA Tollway Corp.”
“We have not received a copy of the alleged complaint, but we are ready to defend OIC Steve Esteban from any malicious and unfounded complaints,” he said.
Inton earlier said that the control of the management and collection of fees in the CIC must be handled by the PEATC and not a private company as what has been raised by the Commission on Audit in its report in 2018.
He said Esteban is just implementing the COA audit observation.
