Ombuds denies motion of dismissed revenue officer

CEBU, Philippines – The office of the Visayas Ombudsman denied the motion for reconsideration filed by the employee of the Bureau of Internal Revenue in Mandaue City who assailed the decision on the administrative case dismissing him from service.

Revenue officer II Omar Mamongcara reiterated in his argument that the complaint against him was not an offshoot of an entrapment operation but a frame-up done by the people who wished to destroy his reputation.

In March 2006, agents of the National Bureau of Investigation arrested Mamongcara in an entrapment operation in Lapu-Lapu City for demanding P50,000 'grease' money from a land owner.

However, Mamongcara said he worked for the office of BIR Mandaue for almost 27 years and claimed that he had a clean record.

"To strengthen my claim, I invoke the affidavit of desistance executed by complainant Elenita Maranga," Mamongcara said in his motion for reconsideration.

Maranga, who acted as a broker to a piece of land in Barangay Canjulao, Lapu-Lapu City, one of the complainants, alleged that Mamongcara demanded P50,000 in exchange for the processing of a deed of sale.

Maranga's affidavit of desistance stated "the civil aspect of aforesaid cases have been amicably settled by the parties herein, and consequently, we have lost interest in proceeding further with the criminal aspect of the above cases, they being frame-up which is very revolting to our conscience by reason of above settlement of the civil aspect."

"We are therefore executing this affidavit to express our voluntary desistance from further prosecuting the above-entitled cases and to affirm my prayer to the honorable prosecutor concerned, for the dismissal of said cases. And likewise to express the fact that we have executed this affidavit free from intimidation and threats and forever discharges the accused of his civil liability from us," it further reads.

Because of this, the corresponding criminal case filed in the court by Maranga against Mamongcara was dismissed on the account of the affidavit of desistance filed by the complainant.

However, Graft Investigator Sarah Jo Vergara was not convinced by Mamongcara's arguments and denied his motion.

"The Ombudsman finds wisdom in the oft-upheld edict that affidavits of desistance are better left demurred than trusted. The Ombudsman highly values solid proof and convincing circumstantial evidence over and above the impulse of the parties and thus its same wariness against a witness' desistance," Vergara explained.

She said the affidavit of desistance executed by Maranga did not even make an effort to explain how the entrapment operation was supposedly a frame-up. (FREEMAN)