Dep't heads, 2 others cleared of charges

CEBU, Philippines - For lack of evidence, the Office of the Ombudsman Visayas dismissed the criminal and administrative complaints against two department heads of the Talisay City Government and two other employees over the alleged dishonesty and falsification of public documents.

Cleared of charges are city budget officer Edgar Mabunay and human resource management officer Emely Cabrera. The two allegedly violated Republic Act 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act and committed dishonesty for allegedly colluding with two other budget office employees who falsified their daily time record.

Likewise, upon the recommendation of graft investigation and prosecution officer Jane Aguilar, the anti-graft office dismissed the same complaints against Nona Narca and Edena Abalo for lack of merit.

The charges stemmed from an anonymous complaint investigated by the Ombudsman Visayas over the alleged falsification of the daily time records of Narca and Abalo to collect overtime pay in 2004.

The complaint, which was docketed for fact-finding, was later upgraded into a formal criminal and administrative adjudication. However, Aguilar found out that the alleged overtime of Narca and Abalo was authorized by their superior.

In his counter-affidavit, Mabunay said they were in a rush to beat the deadline for the submission of the annual budget of the city because the needed inputs from the various departments were delayed.

Mabunay said he requested an authority from Mayor Socrates Fernandez to allow some employees to render overtime services with compensation effective July 19, 2004 until the 2005 budget shall have been submitted to the City Council.

The request was approved, thus, Abalo and Narca were requested to render overtime work. However, because the budget office was newly transferred to the newly-constructed City Hall and there were only a few tricycles plying the route after office hours, he allowed the two employees to bring home the papers they needed to work on.

Narca and Abalo said the discrepancies in their DTR was due to the fact that they only reflected the minimum hours allowed by their department heads even if they worked more than what was allowed to catch up with the deadline.

The Ombudsman found the explanations satisfactory and subsequently dismissed the charges. Narca and Abalo, however, were admonished for causing conflicting entries in their respective DTR. They were also given a stern warning that a repetition of the same will be dealt with more severely. — Fred P. Languido/JMO (THE FREEMAN)