City police director Patrocinio Comendador has approved the recommendation of the Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Branch suspending a policeman for ten days for habitual tardiness.
PO1 Jose Randel T. Buscato will be meted a penalty of ten days starting last Thursday during which he will forfeit his basic salary. It was also recommended he be relieved from the police station and be reassigned outside the Cebu City police as part of his disciplinary action.
The chief of the Pardo police station where Buscato is assigned, Chief Insp. Aureo Sanchez, filed the administrative charges against Buscato because of his alleged habitual unjustified absences and tardiness from December last year to January this year.
In accordance with police tenets this constitutes simple neglect of duty and Sanchez meted him a seven-day suspension.
But upon review and evaluation of the case, the CIIB-Investigation and Detective Management Unit made a resolution not just concurring with the findings and recommendation but also upgraded the penalty to be imposed against Buscato on the grounds of aggravating circumstance.
CIIB-IDMU recommended that 10 days of suspension instead of seven plus relief from his post and transfer outside Cebu City.
During the last Sinulog festival Buscato lost his service pistol, a .45 cal. pistol, to a group of youths who mauled him while he was allegedly drinking in a videoke bar along Pelaez St.
But Buscato said he was not drinking during the time but rather was responding to a trouble alarm reported to him by an acquaintance. — Princess Mondejar, CNU intern/BRP