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[av_heading heading=’Bacolod city hall ‘fixer’ caught in the act’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY MAE SINGUAY
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Tuesday, February 14, 2017
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BACOLOD City – A suspected “fixer” at the Office of the Building Official (OBO) was apprehended.
No less than Executive Assistant Celestino Guara caught Jonathan Navarro carrying voluminous documents related to OBO permit processing.
Navarro did not own the documents; he claimed he was just tasked to carry them, Guara told a news conference yesterday.
Guara said he has received reports from OBO staff and Public Order and Safety Office guards that Navarro frequents the OBO and is often seen bringing documents related to building permit acquisition.
With this in mind, Guara — a retired police senior superintendent and now head of the cluster on Peace and Order, Police Matters, Traffic, and Fire — arrested Navarro around 10 a.m. on Feb. 10 and brought him to Police Station 4.
Navarro was detained but not charged. He was released around 7 p.m.
The suspect claimed he was a casual city government employee assigned at the Burgos Market. But upon verification, Guara found out Navarro was not.
Guara said he will consult with City Administrator John Orola Jr. on the possible filing of charges against Navarro for violation of the Anti-Red Tape Act (ARTA).
Orola heads the ARTA Implementation Core Team, which reviews the local government’s compliance with the law.
The ARTA mandates all government offices to improve efficiency in the delivery of services to the public by reducing bureaucratic red tape, preventing graft and corruption, and providing penalties thereof.
“Red tape,” Mayor Evelio Leonardia said in an executive order, refers to “excessive regulation or rigid conformity to formal rules considered redundant and bureaucratic, and hinder or prevent action or decision-making.”
Weeks after assuming the mayorship after the 2016 election, Leonardia ordered the OBO to eliminate “fixers.”
Corrupt practices at the office damage its reputation and subject its personnel to “suspicion and contempt,” he said.
An initial check of certain frontline offices, including OBO, indicated the presence of fixers, he told the staff in a July 18, 2016 memo.
Certain “private practitioners and contractors,” including electrical and civil engineers, regularly conduct business within OBO premises, Leonardia said.
These private individuals “freely riffle through official files…as they follow up the issuance of various permits and [accommodate] walk-in clients,” and reportedly use the work desks and seats of OBO personnel out on fieldwork, he said.
“This very lax situation at the OBO has given the transacting public the false impression that these private practitioners are employees of the Bacolod LGU (local government unit),” said Leonardia.
Clients who know these private individuals are not city government employees believe the latter are paid by certain OBO personnel, who tolerate their presence at the department, the mayor said.
“This situation is damaging the reputation of the OBO, subjecting its personnel to public suspicion and contempt, and putting at risk the custody and safekeeping of official documents,” said Leonardia./PN
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