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BY MAE SINGUAY
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Friday, May 19, 2017
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BACOLOD City – The Office of the Ombudsman reaffirmed its ruling dismissing from the service Vice Mayor Romel Yogore of Valladolid, Negros Occidental.
The Ombudsman denied with finality the motion for reconsideration Yogore filed against its Jan. 3 ruling finding the vice mayor and several other town officials guilty of grave misconduct and indicting them for violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act (Republic Act 3019).
Grave misconduct, an administrative infraction, comes with the penalty of dismissal from government service.
Yogore and the other respondents were accused of grave misconduct and dishonesty for awarding a P649,140 contract for the repair of two mechanical grain dryers to Franmar Agro Industrial Sales without public bidding and buying P300,000 worth of palay seeds without authority from the Sangguniang Bayan in 2009.
The Ombudsman also ruled on the motion for reconsideration filed by another accused, Assistant Municipal Accountant Cherryl Aguirre — it granted the motion and dismissed the RA 3019 violation charge.
The decisions were contained in two joint orders: one for the criminal aspect and another for administrative aspect dated March 29 and 30, respectively.
Aside from Yogore, also ordered dismissed from the service were Municipal Agriculture Officer Giovanni Robles and Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) members Aguirre, Joseph Alfonso Manayon, Ernesto Genobis, Daisy Galve, Merlene Magbanua, and Ramonito Amazona.
In the motion he filed on Feb. 27, Yogore argued that the Ombudsman “committed a grave error of law” for not applying the condonation doctrine. His re-election as mayor in 2010 and 2013 should have absolved him from administrative liability, he said.
The complainant — the Ombudsman Visayas — “failed to adduce substantial evidence to prove the presence of corruption, clear intent to violate the law or flagrant disregard of established rule in the executions of the contract for the repair of the mechanical dryers and the purchase of palay seeds.”
But Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales insisted that they have not been honoring the condonation doctrine since the Supreme Court struck it down with finality in April 2016 “regardless of when an administrative infraction was committed, when the disciplinary complaint was filed or when the concerned public official was re-elected.”
And contrary to Yogore’s assertion, “the evidence on record substantially show there was a blatant transgression of established rules and regulations in the conduct of the questioned transactions,” Morales said in the latest ruling.
Meanwhile, “there was no direct evidence showing Aguirre was a BAC member at the time when the subject procurement was made,” thus, her part in awarding the contract to Franmar was not established, the Ombudsman said. “The records only show that she signed the disbursement voucher as OIC municipal accountant.”
In the motion she filed on March 3, Aguirre said she was included in the charges “based on the wrongful assumption that she was a member of the BAC at the time the procurement was made in relation to the repair of mechanical dryers and the purchase of palay seeds.”
Aguirre referred to a price quotation dated March 2, 2009 wherein her name was not in the list of BAC members who approved the quotation.
At the time of the transaction, she was appointed OIC (officer-in-charge) municipal accountant and was prohibited from being a regular BAC member pursuant to Commission on Audit Circular No. 2003-004, she explained./PN
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