City might rehire ex-DSWS head

Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said the city government might rehire former Department of Social Welfare and Services chief Nida Sistona as a casual employee of City Hall.

Because of her "knowledge and work experience" which could still be utilized at the lower level in the City Hall, Osmeña said the city might opt to dismiss her from service in compliance with the order of the anti-graft office, then hire her as a casual employee removed of the security of tenure and other benefits.

The mayor, who has yet to receive the order as he only read about it from newspaper reports, found the decision to be quite confusing because while it imposes Sistona's termination from service, it also does not bar her from holding another government post.

"Why don't they make up their mind?" Osmeña told reporters yesterday.

The Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas, in its June 30 administrative decision penned by Graft Investigator Mona Gillamac and signed by Deputy Ombudsman Primo Miro, found Sistona to be guilty of gross neglect and grave misconduct for burying some 200 rotting canned sardines in two separate incidents, in November 2003 and July 2004, and leaving some 3,000 other kind of canned goods to rot inside the city's Social Development Center.

"Personally, how I feel about this is that she did not actually steal it, she's just incompetent. To me that makes a difference," the mayor said.

"Because if you steal, you steal. Even if you steal just two cans of sardines, that's still malicious, when compared to 100 cans of sardines left to rot. That's dishonesty so it's more like she's not qualified for the job," the mayor added.

He said Sistona's violation has something more to do with her incompetence on how to properly store relief goods and dispose of the rotting ones in compliance with the legal procedures in the disposal of government property.

"It's more of an issue of incompetence on her part. That's what I don't like. What I also don't like is the cover-up. And it is compounded by the fact that that department is a hornet of intrigues," Osmeña said.

"One of the dominant problems there is namedropping, specifically by saying, 'I'm close to the mayor.' That's why I put my secretary there because they can't do that to her," Osmeña added.