Provincial Administrator Alfonso “Ae” Damalerio II confirmed yesterday that the province has received delivery of a fleet of Mitsubishi Strada pick ups for increased mobility of area supervisors of the Provincial Engineering Office in the maintenance of more than nine hundred kilometers of provincial roads. Since Gov. Edgar Chatto assumed office, the deal was the single biggest disbursement of public funds, thus confirmed Damalerio in an interview yesterday. This tallied with the information gathered from the distributor of Mitsubishi vehicles in this city. Victor Dominese, manager of Mitsubishi Motors-Tagbilaran, said the local distributor delivered five units of the pick ups valued at P1,297.000 each.The vehicles are parked now at the PEO compound. With a total value of P6.4 million, the package to buy the fleet includes a three-year LTO registration,, one year comprehensive insurance and 6% withholding and final tax.

Dominese said with the recent purchase by the province of the pick ups, the buyer stood to avail of the distributor’s special fleet discount. According to Damalerio, everything was above board in the purchase and any insinuation of irregularity should be dismissed outright. The Capitol official said since the start of the Chatto administration last July, artea supervisors of the PEO have been clamoring for new service vehicles so as not to hamper their field inspection works in provincial-funded roads. The last time the province bought vehicles for its maintenance crew was during the time of governor Constancio Torralba which was a good 22 years ago. With the deteriorating condition of vintage Torralba service vehicles, road maintenance gangs have a hard time gaining access to remote areas of the province where provincial roads are located.