Acting on the ruling of the Office of the Ombudsman, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has ordered the dismissal from the service of the municipal treasurer of Buguias, Benguet for her alleged involvement in the P728-million fertilizer fund scam.
Dominguez directed the Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) to implement the Ombudsman’s ruling against municipal treasurer Aniceta Suyat, who was found guilty of grave misconduct and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service.
Besides her dismissal from the service, the Ombudsman also ordered the cancellation of Suyat’s eligibility, the forfeiture of her retirement benefits, and her perpetual disqualification from holding public office.
In a separate case, Dominguez also ordered the dismissal from the service of Candidato Macabangon, the municipal treasurer of Bubong, Lanao del Sur for being found liable for serious dishonesty by the Office of the Ombudsman in Mindanao.
Another municipal treasurer, Jose Pastor Jr. of Talaingod, Davao del Norte, was ordered suspended by Dominguez for three months without pay, in compliance with the directive of the Office of the Ombudsman in Mindanao, which had found him liable for simple neglect of duty.
Earlier, Dominguez also ordered the forfeiture of the retirement benefits of Cipriano Plazos, the municipal treasurer of Katipunan, Zamboanga del Norte after the Ombudsman found the latter administratively guilty of “grave misconduct, gross neglect of duty and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service.”
Dominguez, in a separate case, had also ordered the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to suspend for six months without pay a customs officer for failing to declare for three consecutive years a number of properties in his annual Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN).
Jerry Gomez Ponce, who holds the position of Customs Operations Officer IV in the BOC, was ordered suspended for six months without pay by the Office of the Overall Deputy Ombudsman after being found liable for Simple Dishonesty and Simple Neglect of Duty.
Dominguez has also directed the filing of administrative charges against fugitive Laoag City Treasurer Elena Asuncion and has asked the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Commission on Audit (COA) to conduct deeper probes into the over P85 million-worth of missing public funds under her accountability.
Dominguez has been acting swiftly in penalizing erring officials under his supervision to send a strong message that irregularities at the Department of Finance (DOF) would never be tolerated on his watch, in step with President Duterte’s anti-corruption drive.
The case against Suyat stemmed from the procurement by the Buguias municipal government in June 2004 of P1.05 million-worth of chemical fertilizers from PMB Agro Goods and Services without the benefit of public bidding.
The amount of P1.05 million was the municipality’s share in the implementation in 2004 of the P728-million Farm Inputs and Farm Implementation Program of the Department of Agriculture.
A probe done by Task Force Abono, which was the special panel created by the Ombudsman to investigate the fertilizer fund scam, showed that Suyat had certified the cash availability in the unnumbered and undated Purchase Request for the fertilizers and also signed the disbursement voucher and check to pay PMB Agro.
The Ombudsman said that Suyat had acted in bad faith in releasing public funds for the purchase of the fertilizers without the municipal government conducting any public bidding on this procurement.
In issuing its ruling against Suyat, the Ombudsman noted that “in administrative cases, the injury sought to be remedied is not merely the loss of public money or property. More significant are the pernicious effects of such action on the orderly administration of government services.”
The Ombudsman also said that “when an officer is disciplined, the object sought is not the punishment of such officer or employee, but the improvement of the public service and the preservation of public faith and confidence in the government.”
The dismissal order against Macabango stemmed from his being found guilty of serious dishonesty by the Office of the Ombudsman in Mindanao for submitting falsified ‘reconstructed’ SALNs from 2000 to 2006.
Regarding Plazo’s case, the Ombudsman had first ordered Plazos’ dismissal from the service four times in connection with four separate but related cases.
“But since Plazos was already retired, the fine in lieu of his dismissal would be equivalent to four times his salary for one year,” said BLGF acting Executive Director Nino Raymond Alvina.
Aside from paying a fine and having his retirement benefits forfeited, Plazos was also penalized with the cancellation of his eligibility, perpetual disqualification from holding public office and taking civil service examinations.
In Pastor’s case, he was suspended after the Ombudsman discovered that his negligence had enabled a casual employee, Leonor Misoles, to misappropriate P311,400 worth of municipal funds, Misoles, who has since gone on absence without leave, was able to encash checks of the municipal government that were pre-signed by Pastor.
As for Asuncion’s case, the BLGF’s fact-finding investigation revealed that her office had “disregarded internal control systems and procedures and public fund management principles.”
The BLGF team found out that on her watch as city treasurer, Asuncion had completely controlled all cash collections and that the cashbooks were not regularly updated, in violation of local treasury operations rules of the DOF and COA regulations.
