Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has ordered the forfeiture of the retirement benefits of the municipal treasurer of Katipunan, Zamboanga del Norte after the Office of 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 directed the Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) to implement the Ombudsman’s ruling against municipal treasurer Cipriano Plazos, who was held liable for his failure to safeguard public funds under his accountability.
The Ombudsman has slapped administrative charges against Plazos along with Katipunan Mayor Crisostomo Eguia Jr. and municipal accountant Urdaneta Madridondo.
Dominguez has been swiftly acting on the Ombudsman’s orders penalizing erring officials under his supervision to send a strong message that irregularities would never be tolerated at the Department of Finance (DOF) on his watch.
Besides 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.
Plazos was also ordered dismissed by the Ombudsman, but the directive was no longer enforceable because he was already separated from the service when the anti-graft body issued its ruling on his case.
The Ombudsman, instead, ordered Plazos to pay a fine equivalent to his salary for one year.
Dominguez directed BLGF acting Executive Director Nino Raymond Alvina to submit a compliance report [to his Office] within five days from receiving the directive and to furnish a copy to the Office of the Ombudsman-Mindanao.
Plazos was the municipal treasurer of Katipunan at the time that Eguia was found to have consistently failed to account for unliquidated cash advances amounting to P2 million from 1998 to 2011.
The Ombudsman has also filed several criminal charges against Eguia.
According to the Ombudsman, “it is a declared public policy that all resources of the government should be managed, expended or utilized in accordance with the law and safeguarded against loss or wastage.”
Earlier, Dominguez 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.
The BLGF’s fact-finding investigation revealed that Asuncion’s 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.
