Danao City Mayor charged for selling gov't cars

CEBU, Philippines - The Danao City Council led by Vice Mayor Ramon “Nito” Durano III yesterday filed another criminal and administrative complaint before the Office of the Ombudsman Visayas against Mayor Ramon Durano Jr. and several other city officials because of the alleged anomalous disposal of the city’s unserviceable vehicles and equipment.

 Aside from Ramon, the members of the city council also named the General Services Office chief and head of the disposal committee Tita Damiles as respondents of the complaints for alleged violations of the Local Government Code, R.A. 6713 or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees and the Anti-Red Tape Law.

 According to the complainants, Damiles listed several vehicles, including heavy equipments owned by the city government as unserviceable.

 The Mayor and the disposal committee he created headed by Damiles sold the properties to his political supporter, Guinacot Barangay Captain Santiago Perez, without public bidding. The equipment sold includes one unit compactor truck, one unit garbage compactor truck, two units dump trucks, one unit Kia, two truckloads of used tires and several airconditioning units.

 The members of the council claimed that the transaction was grossly disadvantageous to the government because the items were only sold for P402,000 which they described as way below the current buying and selling price of scrap metal which is at P16 to P18 per kilo.

 “If found valuable, the same shall be sold at public auction to the highest bidder under the supervision of the committee on awards and in the presence of the provincial, city or municipal auditor or his duly authorized representative,” the complaint reads.

 According to the complainants, the rules require that a public auction shall be made. Prior to the auction, a notice to the public shall be posted in at least three publicly accessible and conspicuous places.

 If the amount involved exceeds P100,000 a newspaper publication is already required, which the respondents allegedly ignored. They also alleged that contrary to the declaration of Damiles that the vehicles were already unserviceable, the dump trucks and compactor trucks were used by Perez in his quarry operations few days after the sale.

 They also accused Damiles of trying to suppress the documents pertaining to the transaction by refusing to give them copies in spite of a formal request. The refusal, according to them, constitutes a violation of the R.A. 6713 and the Anti-Red Tape Law.

 The complainants said they were just given an excuse that all the documents pertaining to the transaction were already given to the Mayor’s lawyer, Gloria Lastimosa Dalawampu.

The council members questioned it because Dalawampu is not connected with the city government considering that her appointment as city legal officer was not recognized by them. — (FREEMAN)