Ombuds upholds suspension of Customs employee

CEBU, Philippines - The anti-graft office affirmed its decision finding a warehouseman of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) guilty of simple neglect of duty.

The respondent, Cirilo Arong, was assigned at the BOC Sub-Port in Mactan, Lapu-Lapu City.

In her decision, graft investigator Amy Rose Rellin said no new evidence was found to warrant Arong’s motion for reconsideration. He was earlier ordered suspended for three months without pay or suspended for one month and a fine of P5,000.

“In view of the foregoing, this Office is constrained to deny respondent’s motion. Since the mitigating circumstances of first offense and the aggravating circumstance of length of government service are deemed to have offset each other, the medium of the penalty, that is, our originally imposed penalty of suspension for three months and one day, has been correctly imposed,” order reads.

Rellin likewise said that there was no convincing reason to reduce the length of suspension.

Arong faced the charges after he agreed to the decision of another team member to copy the figures in a previous inventory of wristwatches and signed the boxes that contained them despite the fact that the boxes were not actually opened and no physical inventory was made.

In asking for the reduction of the length of suspension, Arong said it was his first offense and his work record of 32 years has never been blemished.

However, Rellin ruled that Arong’s arguments are not enough to grant the reduction.

“Clearly, it cannot qualify as newly discovered evidence that could materially affect the adjudication by this Office,” the order reads.

Rellin also said that Arong cannot claim length of government service as a justifying circumstance.

“Length of service is not a magic word that, once invoked, will automatically be considered as a mitigating circumstance in favor of the party invoking it,” she said.

Considering his service record, Rellin said Arong should have known the elementary rule that actual and physical inventory must be conducted.

“This is a blatant disregard or abandonment of an otherwise simple duty which any man of common sense should have known and observed, much more respondent, who has been in government service for a long time, and is presumed to be cognizant of his bounden duties as a public servant,” the order reads.

Meanwhile, Rellin granted the motion filed by another respondent in the case, former customs operations officer Jane Maye, to convert the penalty of three months and one day suspension into fine equivalent to her three months salary and one day, based on her salary rate at the time of her retirement.

Maye asked for conversion as she already retired from service and could no longer serve the penalty.

Graft investigator found Maye’s motion meritorious.

“Upon verification by this Office, it was confirmed that respondent Maye retired from the government service on February 19, 2011. It is well to note that our decision dated February 1, 2011 was released only on June 9, 2011, or way after respondent Maye’s retirement had already effected,” order reads. — (FREEMAN)