Osmeña, 8 others rapped over fund mess

CEBU CITY — The Office of the Ombudsman has found sufficient grounds to upgrade to a formal criminal case its inquiry into the release of funds to a bogus foundation. The controversy has dragged the names of a number of provincial officials, including Vice Gov. John Gregory Osmeña.

In a memorandum approved by Deputy Ombudsman for the Visayas Primo Miro, Ombudsman director Virginia Palanca-Santiago recommended that a case for violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act be opened against Osmeña, provincial board member Victor Maambong and Osmeña’s executive assistant Wilfredo Mulla, who is also the subject of a separate case of dishonesty.

Also included in the criminal case are the supposed incorporators of the Perdido Lex Foundation, among them Milagros Herrera, Fe Tan, Nancy Sia, Veronica Caceres, Teodora Limcangco and Michael Santos, who claimed to be an employee of Government Solutions Information Inc. but who signed as an accounting staffer in one of the foundation’s documents.

Santiago said a certain Adelaida Osorio, who claimed to be a corporate accountant of All Nations Publishing Co. Inc. which Perdido Lex contracted should also be investigated.

It was found out that All Nations is non-existent as its supposed contact number appearing in one document is actually a residential telephone number.

Osmeña refused to comment on the Ombudsman’s findings, saying he has yet to get a copy of Santiago’s memorandum.

Based on documents, Santiago said it was established that the provincial government, through a resolution of the provincial board, accredited Perdido Lex to receive funding from the provincial government.

Perdido Lex was advertised as a non-stock, non-profit organization registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Oct. 24, 2002.

Its primary purpose was reportedly to receive and maintain funds to be used in promoting education among the youth and setting up scholarships for out-of-school-youth.

The provincial board accredited Perdido Lex after its committee on cooperatives and NGO accreditation, chaired by Maambong, recommended it. Osmeña’s office subsequently released P4 million to the foundation.

But it turned out that Perdido Lex was bogus after the provincial government’s local finance committee held in abeyance further requests for releases of additional funds from Osmeña’s office because previous fund releases were not liquidated.

The foundation reportedly held office in Barangay Lahug and later transferred to the Astra building on N. Bacalso Avenue.

But the National Bureau of Investigation discovered that there was no Perdido Lex Foundation that held office in either Lahug or the Astra building.

The NBI sent summons to the supposed incorporators of Perdido Lex in the addresses stated in its articles of incorporation but none of them could be found, except Caceres who actually worked as Osmeña’s caretaker.

The NBI also found out that the Government Information Solutions Inc., which reportedly made the curriculum study for the foundation’s supposed computer education program and which was paid P900,000, was also non-existent. It allegedly merely copied its logo from Corporate Information Solutions Inc.

CIS president and chief executive officer Yolanda Arbis certified that Government Solutions was different from CIS and that they had no employee by the name of Michael Santos. — Freeman News Service