ROXAS City – Days after the Commission on Audit (COA) summoned the alleged “ghost employees” under the city government’s Matahum and Matinlo Program, an affidavit from Vice Mayor Erwin Sicad’s secretary has surfaced.
In the affidavit dated Aug. 20, Maria Ubiña-Fabiaña said Sicad was “free from any and all liabilities” in relation to the hiring of the 15 workers whose identities the COA has yet to verify.
COA has an ongoing post audit, particularly regarding the payroll of the workers.
Fabiaña said Sicad “entrusted to me the hiring of casual employees, the preparation of the payrolls and disbursement of funds.”
“Should there be any mistake, misrepresentation, anomaly, fraud, omission, or the likes in the hiring of casual employees and in the preparation of the said documents, I irrevocably render VM Sicad free and harmless from any and all liabilities for I have only myself to blame,” she added.
Sicad, according to Fabiaña, “had nothing to do with the preparation of the aforesaid payrolls, neither had he anything to do with the hiring.”
He “does not know anything about the people whose names appear on the said documents nor the disbursement of funds,” she added.
Part of the affidavit also showed Fabiaña apologizing to Sicad. It read: “I also hasten to add that I am sorry that I took advantage of a good man in the person of VM Sicad.”
The affidavit was subscribed and sworn to before Assistant City Prosecutor Eduardo Delfin.
An undated letter addressed to Sicad, also from Fabiaña, had a similar content.
“Ginabagabag na gid ako sang akon konsensya kay bangod sang nahimo ko nga pagtonto sa imo. Sir, pasensyaha ako sa pagpangawat ko sa imo sang mga sweldo sang mga tawo nga akon ginbutang sa payroll,” part of the letter read.
Residents who took to social media their reaction to the affidavit and letter said Fabiaña was only being used as a scapegoat.
“Mahimo bala ina kon wala may nagsugo? May sacrificial lamb naman sila,” Facebook user Myrna Custodio posted.
In a text message to Panay News, Councilor Powell del Rosario said the affidavit “will not spare VM Sicad from liability.”
Del Rosario, a lawyer, said the “fact remains that” Sicad committed “evident bad faith or gross inexcusable negligence.”
“Sicad, in his recorded interview last Aug. 13, has already admitted receiving money from his secretary (Fabiaña) every pay period. The statement of Sicad in that interview was free and spontaneous without threat or duress,” del Rosario added.
In August, del Rosario questioned the payrolls furnished to him by Sangguniang Panlungsod secretary Dino Beluso.
The payrolls lacked the basic information needed in a securing residence tax certificate such as middle names and addresses, he said.
Sicad made the payrolls when he was acting mayor for almost a month from July to August, claimed del Rosario.
The councilor invited the 15 casual workers to a meeting at city hall in July but no one showed up. But Sicad earlier said “inang 15 ka mga tawo ga-exist ina.”
The Matahum and Matinlo Program has a budget of P500,000 – with P350,000 already used in the first half of the year. Its workers are paid P160 a day./PN
