Cebu records officer suspended for land title loss

CEBU CITY — The Office of the Ombudsman has suspended a records officer of the city’s register of deeds for one month for the loss of an original certificate of title (OCT) under his custody, but cleared another official of the same offense.

The case started when a certain Raul Yap filed a complaint for grave misconduct against registrar Felixberto Aliño and records officer Juanito Montenegro after Yap found that his application for transfer of title could not be processed because the OCT of the land to be transferred was lost.

In his decision, graft investigation officer Pio Dargantes said the OCT’s loss was not explained by Aliño and Montenegro and that the person directly responsible for custody of the document was Montenegro, being the records officer.

Dargantes said the act of the respondents, particularly Montenegro, in trying to help Yap later file a petition for the OCT’s reconstitution was a clear manifestation that the loss can be blamed on the records officer.

And while the Ombudsman would want to give the respondents the benefit of the doubt, taking the loss of the OCT only due to inadvertence, records show that the incident was not a first at the register of deeds and, specifically involving Montenegro, Dargantes said.

Dargantes cited an earlier case, similarly the loss of a land title, for which the Ombudsman had meted Montenegro and another employee a one-month suspension each.

The suspension, however, was converted into a fine, equivalent to a month’s salary, for the two. That sanction failed to deter Montenegro from committing a similar offense, this time involving Yap’s OCT, or spur him to show improvement in his manner of keeping records and documents, Dergantes said.

In clearing Aliño, the Ombudsman said there was insufficient evidence to hold him administratively liable.

In his complaint, Yap said the respondents told him to file in court a petition for reconstitution of title to recover the lost OCT.

Suspecting that Montenegro could be interested in that parcel of land, Yap wrote Aliño asking that his application for transfer of title be given due course.

He claimed that Aliño and Montenegro failed to act on this.

Aliño belied Yap’s allegations, saying he had instructed Montenegro to look for the OCT.

He further claimed that on June 28, 2002, Yap borrowed all the documents from the office, thus stalling his application for transfer of title.

Montenegro denied losing the document, arguing that it was just misfiled and that his office was still looking for it.

He also denied Yap’s claim that he demanded from him a 10 percent commission if the lot was sold. — Freeman News Service