Top SBMA executive placed under 90-day suspension

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT, Philippines  – The deputy administrator for legal affairs of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) has been slapped with a 90-day preventive suspension after investigators found prima facie case for the filing of formal charges against him.

The suspension of lawyer Randy Escolango took effect last Nov. 11 and could not be appealed, SBMA administrator and chief executive officer Armand Arreza told The STAR.

“Any motion against it will not stop the execution of the order of preventive suspension, as provided in Civil Service Commission Circular No. 16, series of 2009,” Arreza added.

The SBMA ordered Escolango’s suspension after lawyer Ruel John Kabigting, the special investigating officer of the agency’s Disciplinary Action Committee, conducted a two-month preliminary investigation and found prima facie case for the filing of formal charges against Escolango.

Arreza said the SBMA would initiate administrative action against Escolango for alleged grave misconduct, dishonesty, falsification of official documents, oppression, and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service.

“He will also be charged with violating Section 9 of the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees, for his failure to divest himself from his private law practice,” Arreza added.

The case against Escolango stemmed from a formal complaint filed by his former associate lawyer, Bart Dalangin, who Escolango asked to serve as counsel in settling a compromise agreement in a labor case against Freeport Service Corp. (FSC), a subsidiary of SBMA. 

In a sworn statement-complaint, Dalangin accused Escolango of forging his (Dalangin’s) signature as counsel of 380 dismissed employees of the FSC.

Dalangin alleged that Escolango actively participated in implementing the compromise agreement even if he (Escolango) was already the SBMA’s deputy administrator for legal affairs. 

The compromise agreement consisted of a monetary award, totaling P4.393 million, or an equivalent of P16,588 per dismissed FSC employee-complainant, as separation pay, in accordance with the decision of the National Labor Relations Commission.

Based on the sworn statement of the affected FSC employees, Escolango only gave them P8,200 in his residence in Morong, Bataan, thus leaving an excess of more than P1.05 million, which the lawyer failed to account for during the preliminary investigation.

Another sworn statement from the former finance manager and two finance staffers of FSC stated that on June 4, 2010, P4.393 million in cash was handed over to Escolango and Israel Migano, his driver and liaison officer from his Olongapo City law office. 

The cash was given to Escolango and Migano despite the finance manager’s position that the amount be released via a company check. 

The turnover was done at the FSC building on the basis of a special power of attorney allegedly signed by Dalangin, authorizing Migano to receive the monetary award.

In his report on the case, Kabigting said, “Assuming that he (Escolango) was pursuing the case from the background with Dalangin as his front and with, as he claims, only the best interests of his clients in mind, Escolango – now a deputy administrator dealing with the SBMA’s subsidiary (FSC) – had an even higher moral obligation to ensure that the 380 former FSC employees – his former clients – would be treated justly and with all transparency by rendering an accounting or breakdown of the P4,393,000.”

Instead, Kabigting said, Escolango continued to act as an “expeditor” of the compromise agreement.

“Clearly, there was an excess, the distribution of which was unaccounted for,” Kabigting told The STAR.

Escolango, however, denied the allegations against him and argued that Dalangin’s complaint did not show any cause of action.

The SBMA hired Escolango last Feb. 16 as a consultant and subsequently appointed him as deputy administrator for legal affairs on May 4.