Ombudsman clears teacher of dishonesty

CEBU, Philippines - For lack of substantial evidence, the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas cleared a public school teacher of the Tacup Elementary School in San Remigio town of an administrative complaint for dishonesty.

Graft investigator Maria Corazon Naraja said Blas Andrino of Barangay Tacup, San Remigio, failed to support with evidence his accusations that respondent Lydia Andrin falsified school documents.

“Verily, the evidence at hand falls short of the required quantum of evidence to hold the respondent guilty of dishonesty,” the decision read.

Based on evidence Naraja added it showed that the allegation of the complainant that respondent falsified the results of the first and second district periodical achievement tests of Grade 6 pupil Milagros Veraque, were unclear.

“The copies submitted to this Office are not even the full and complete image of the documents since the bottom portion thereof cannot be found,” the decision further read.

In his complaint, Andrino alleged that the respondent falsified the results of Veraque’s examination considering the latter was not enrolled in school year 2010-2011.

He said Veraque obtained a total score of 182 for the first district periodical achievement test and 234 for the second achievement test.

As evidence, he attached the affidavit of Veraque.

In the said affidavit, Veraque stated that she never enrolled in the class of Andrino and she never attended classes at the Tacup Elementary School since June 2010 until March 2011.

In her counter-affidavit, Andrin clarified that Veraque enrolled for school year 2010-2011 but eventually dropped out.

To support her statement she attached a copy of a report on promotions containing a list of pupils who left the school and Veraque was in the list.

Andrin averred that the Department of Education implemented a program that out-of-school youths and adults can re-enter school.

“Recent DepEd policies provide an alternative to existing formal instruction such that out of school youths and adults are given the option to reenter school and finish the class program. This means that enrollees under this program are not required to attend regular classes. This is supposedly what happened to Veraque,” she narrated.

Moreover, she said the filing of complaint was “compelled by ill-motive” after the complainant’s daughter failed to graduate as class valedictorian while under her advisory and that complainant was a known critic of her husband during the latter’s term as barangay captain.

Upon evaluation of the complaint, Naraja found no evidence to indict the respondent.

“We are not convinced,” the decision read.

Naraja said based on the documents submitted before their office, the documents only contained the typewritten name of the respondent and no signature.

Furthermore, she said a request with the DepEd for authenticated copies of the subject documents yielded no positive result.       - THE FREEMAN