CIDG cop sues officials for “unjust” suspension

The top officials of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group have been sued by one of their subordinates whom they have ordered suspended for two months for allegedly stealing P11,000 from their headquarters in Camp Sotero Cabahug.

Named respondents in the case filed before the Regional Trial Court in Cebu City are CIDG national director Edgardo Doromal, CIDG-7 regional director Jose Jorge Corpus and CIDG legal officer Enrique Lacerna.

SPO1 Rodolfo Gabisay complained that he was not afforded his right to defend himself of the accusations and to face his accuser whose testimony was used by Lacerna as his basis for recommending his suspension.

Gabisay was accused of destroying the locker of PO2 Aquiles Gimenez last August 6, and stealing P11,000 owned by a private complainant in an extortion case.

He denied stealing the money but Lacerna believes it was him after the daughter of a cook in the CIDG said she twice saw Gabisay enter the room where the locker was --first shortly before midnight of August 5 and then past 2 a.m. of August 6.

To prove his innocence, Gabisay asked Corpus to subject him and the other CIDG agents to a lie-detector test, but this was rejected.

Lacerna’s recommendation that was approved by Corpus was to suspend Gabisay for 45 days, but when the decision was forwarded to the CIDG head office in Camp Crame, Doromal upgraded the suspension to 60 days.

Camp Crame has already issued an order suspending Gabisay from the service from October 2 to December 2, but the latter argued that it was questionable because he only received the copy of Lacerna’s resolution of his investigation and the decision of his case.

Gabisay’s counsel Ronald Baquiano argued that Lacerna, who acted as the hearing officer of the case, committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack of excess of jurisdiction when he based his resolution on the presumption that he was already guilty.

“With all due respect to Lacerna’s doctrine asserting that in administrative proceedings public officials are presumed guilty until proven innocent, the undersigned pleads for assistance for his ignorance because he had never encounter such a doctrine in administrative law or elsewhere,” Baquiano said.

Baquiano quoted the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case of Llamoso vs. Sandiganbayan where the High Tribunal ruled that the presumption of innocence is founded upon the first principles of justice and is not a mere form, but a substantial part of the law – it is not overcome by mere suspicion or conjecture, a probability that the defendant committed the crime, nor the fact that he had the opportunity to do so.”  – Rene U. Borromeo/BRP