Dismissed ABC employee raps 3 CA justices for graft

A dismissed employee of the Association of Barangay Councils (ABC) in Cebu City has charged three Court of Appeals justices in Cebu City with graft and corruption and violation of the penal code for allegedly rendering an unjust judgement.

Engineer Leah Rondez yesterday filed two criminal charges against Justice Isaias Dicdican, chairman of the 19th division of the Court of Appeals based in Cebu City, and two of his members, justices Enrico Lanzanas and Apolonario Bruselas, Jr. before the Office of the Ombudsman Visayas.

Rondez has accused the three justices of violation of Section 3(e) of R.A. 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act and knowingly rendering unjust judgement in violation of Article 204 of the Revised Penal Code.

Also named respondents of the charges were ABC president Eugenio Faelnar and lawyers Sisinio Andales and Julius Ceasar Entise.

The case stemmed from a petition for certiorari filed by Faelnar and other ABC officials, who were ordered suspended by the anti-graft office because of the administrative charges filed by Rondez against them. The petition sought to nullify the Ombudsman's decision penalizing Faelnar and the rest of the ABC officials with 90 days suspension.

Acting on the petition for certiorari, Dicdican and the members of his division, granted it on March 31, 2006 setting aside the earlier decision of the anti-graft body. Rondez, assisted by her father, lawyer Alfonso de la Cerna, said that the appellate court's decision was allegedly tainted with evident bad faith, manifest partiality and with deliberate intent to do injustice, because Dicdican has a personal transaction with the city council wherein Faelnar is an ex-officio member.

Rondez, in her affidavit, said that Faelnar and Dicdican have a personal link because of the sale of the latter's property in Guadalupe.

Attached to the affidavit was a copy of the city council resolution dated March 2, 2005. It showed that Faelnar was the one who filed a motion authorizing Mayor Tomas Osmeña to enter and sign, on behalf of the City Government, a deed of absolute sale, of six parcels of land owned by Dicdican in barangay Guadalupe.

The lot was used for the proposed construction of a day care center and other intended purposes for the benefit of the constituents of barangay Guadalupe.

Rondez earlier charged Faelnar and ABC officials for violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act for allegedly refusing to pay her terminal leave pay amounting to P122,480 and other benefits.

Rondez claimed that she was illegally terminated by the new set of ABC officials led by Faelnar. - Fred P. Languido