ooWhoever among the governor's men who was a party to a conspiracy to mislead the public in connection with the purchase of the controversial hydraulic excavator must be investigated to clear the names of those who are innocent of the covert operations. No, this treatise is not about the pricing scheme or whoever profited of the transaction. This was all about the publication of a certification and all that that tended to show that everything was above board and therefore beyond the reach of public scrutiny. A deeper scrutiny of the publication would show that it was really a stupid attempt to mislead the public or to put on the spot former OIC Gov. Victor de la Serna, the alleged whistle blower of the backhoe deal.

But de la Serna is not a bar topnotcher for nothing. He saw in the publication an attempt to muddle the issue even if it was shown to be an outright lie and a grand deception. One good thing about the surreptitious publication was that it was not carried out by big circulation weeklies. This may explain why the impact was non existent. It was in this publication dated August 6 that the public knew that the backhoe supposed to be bought by the provincial government was a Volvo. The Volvo card was deliberately laid down to slam de la Serna's contention in the past that the brand the province bought was a Kumatsu.

The most glaring misinformation in the publication was that the Volvo backhoe is yet to be bought again in an apparent bid to put de la Serna in a bad light because after all what he had been perorating over the airlanes was that it was already a done deal. This twisted argument was torpedoed no less by Gov. Erico Aumentado when he admitted during last Friday's Governor's Report that the heavy equipment is already in transit and it will arrive FOB Tagbilaran anytime. Besides how in heaven's name can the publication dispute the fact that the transaction was already consumated as early as July 14, the day when the debit memo of the Letter of Credit was paid from the account of the provincial government in the Philippine National bank if the backhoe is yet to be acquired as the publication suggested.

Another entry in the publication was the certifications from the Municipality of Inabanga thru Mayor Josephine Socorro Jumamoy and Engr. Manuelito Varquez that they were not buyers of a heavy equipment like a Komatsu brand hydraulic excavator. To our mind, even if all Bohol contractors would issue certifications to this effect would not make any difference because as far as we knew de la Serna never mentioned anything about local contractors buying that brand of heavy equipment. Yes, he did mention of a Boholano contractor now based in Surigao to have bought a Komatsu backhoe. Why are we raising this issue when the question of the back hoe purchase was centered mainly on the alleged overprice? For one, we just want to strengthen facts, which were deliberately twisted to serve the ends of economic enterprise.