La Union town treasurer flees with P15 M in bank deposits

BANGAR, La Union – This town’s treasurer has gone missing after emptying the municipal bank account of more than P15 million by allegedly forging the mayor’s signature.

Municipal treasurer Saturnino Dingle is now the subject of a hold departure order after the municipal council authorized Mayor Joy Pinzon Merin to file charges of malversation of public funds through falsification of commercial and public documents against him at the prosecutor’s office in San Fernando City.

Merin said Dingle was able to withdraw P9,185,214 from the town’s high-yield savings account and P6.2 million from time deposits from the Land Bank of the Philippines branch in San Fernando City.

She said Dingle did this by falsifying her signature in the withdrawal slips and several documents, resulting in the termination of the account.

In her complaint, Merin said Dingle executed and presented a letter to the Landbank last Sept. 12, a photocopy of which “also contained falsified signatures purportedly in conformity to the request that I absolutely authorized or instructed him to pre-terminate the account, much less to withdraw the fund.”

Upon discovering the anomaly, Merin promptly instructed her staff to locate Dingle, but even with the help of the police, he was nowhere to be found.

Dingle was the main depositor in the account, and Merin, a co-depositor. Both their signatures were needed for withdrawals.

Dingle’s initial withdrawals went unnoticed until a regular audit conducted by the Commission on Audit (COA) revealed that he failed to present the statement of accounts on the status of the funds.

This prompted Merin to direct municipal accountant Raul Augustus Dy to check the records of the municipal account but the bank manager reportedly advised him to get a letter from the mayor.

On Sept. 12, Dy and Dingle both went to Landbank but Dingle was reportedly able to prod Dy to go first to the COA office for a sort of inquiry.

However, Dingle did not follow Dy to the COA office and when the municipal accountant returned to the bank, Dingle was already nowhere to be found and the remaining P4,390,488, plus interest, had been withdrawn and the account had been terminated.

Merin met with COA and Landbank officials here Thursday to coordinate the ongoing investigation.