BACOLOD City – Sulpicio Lagarde Jr. – the current general manager of Central Negros Electric Cooperative (Ceneco) – will have to report to office this week, according to the power cooperative’s president Dwight Carbon.
Carbon said Lagarde’s leave already lapsed on Jan. 25.
Lagarde has not reported to his office for almost a month now after Judge Remegio Rojo of the Municipal Trial Court in Cities Branch 5 ordered for his arrest on Dec. 20.
The court has convicted Lagarde and former Ceneco Board president Edward Gasambelo over a falsification case that former Ceneco Board member Enrique Tabino filed.
It ruled that Lagarde and Gasambelo were guilty of falsifying Ceneco Board Resolution No. 8560-A series of 2009, which applied for a provisional Ceneco rate increase before the Energy Regulatory Commission.
Lagarde and Gasambelo were sentenced with an imprisonment of at least three years, six months and 21 days and at most four years, nine months and 10 days and a P5,000 fine for each medium period.
In his letter to the Ceneco Board dated Jan. 22, Lagarde wrote: “In spite of the court conviction and the warrant of arrest issued against me and Gasambelo, we never wavered, firm in our belief that we never did anything to harm Ceneco and its member-consumers.”
Lagarde already filed a motion appealing for the reversal of the court’s decision./PN
