Ambulance buy case

ISABEL, LEYTE, Philippines – The Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas has ordered the village chairman of Brgy. Sto. Niño, this town, to submit his counter-affidavit to a criminal complaint filed against him by his four barangay councilmen.

The case against Brgy. Chairman Paterno Hermoso was about the purchase of a second-hand van owned by his own father that was allegedly converted into an ambulance at the price of a brand new or “surplus” unit.

Hermoso is currently under a 60-day preventive suspension upon the recommendation of the Municipal Council that handled the administrative side of the issue.

He did not file any counter-affidavit to the complaint filed against him at the Council, even as he asked for an extension of time to file and was granted. Now, he is asking the Regional Trial Court to grant him a temporary restraining order against the suspension order served earlier against him. 

RTC executive judge Clinton Nuevo heard on Thursday the TRO motion of Hermoso, and the oral arguments on the issue by the barangay official’s counsel Edgardo Cordeno and that of lawyer Richard Bauson, representing the Municipal Council. 

The Ombudsman, for its part, warned Hermoso to file his counter-affidavit “strictly within 10 days” after receipt of the order and to furnish complainants a copy. The complainants were likewise given the opportunity to file a reply-affidavit “within an inextendible period of ten days” after receiving Hermoso’s counter-affidavit.

The case against Hermoso was filed, together with three other councilmen, by Brgy. Councilwoman Dolly Valerie Bertulfo, daughter of incumbent Provincial Board Member Deborah “Ebon” Bertulfo.

They filed the criminal complaint at the Ombudsman and administrative case at the Municipal Council against Hermoso after they allegedly found out that the ambulance purchased was a second-hand van, converted into an ambulance in a shop in Cebu City.

Hermoso, in his motion for a TRO, countered that the Council circumvented the legal process to hasten his suspension. (FREEMAN)