Liloan workers cleared of misconduct

CEBU, Philippines - The anti-graft office dismissed the administrative complaint for misconduct against the employees of the municipality of Liloan for insufficiency of evidence.

Graft investigator Pio Dargantes said the complainant, Radaelito Lo Jr., failed to produce evidence to prove the guilt of the respondents for misrepresentation.

Named respondents were Victor Sembrano, administrative aide of the Office of the Municipal Planning and Development Office; Luzviminda Vallente, sanitation inspector and Malou Diana Montajes, sanitary assistant of the Municipal Health Office and Marciano Alejandrino Jr., job-order employee of the Municipal Treasurer’s Office.

In his complaint, Lo said he was the owner of Uniwide Scrap Traders Corporation (USTC) with office address at Whiterose, Yati, Liloan, Cebu.

On May 24, 2010, he said, respondents went to their office to conduct an inspection and allegedly introduced themselves as coming from the Office of the Building Official (OBO).

He added that when their personnel asked for identification cards (IDs), the respondents allegedly refused to present any and threatened to call Mayor Vincent Franco Frasco if they were not allowed entry.

“Considering that complainant had a pending application for an occupancy permit with the OBO, he directed his personnel to allow respondents into the premises,” the complaint reads.

He said when his personnel asked Alejandrino as to the status of their application for occupancy permit, the latter told them “there is no problem.”

Moreover, Lo said on June 4, 2010, Roberto Tiro who claimed to be a representative of OBO went to their office informing them that they will be conducting an inspection in relation to their pending application.

With that, Lo said he informed Tiro that the respondents went to their office and inspected the premises wherein the latter introduced themselves that they were from OBO.

Tiro then told him that they were not from OBO. In their counter-affidavits, respondents denied the allegations but admitted that they went to USTC on May 24, 2010 based on the order of license inspector Hammurabi Bugtai to conduct an inspection.

Respondents said they went to the premises to inspect the alleged “obnoxious odor” which residents near the USTC lodged complained against.

They said upon entry of the premises they saw that the company was engaged in “metal cutting activities” when in fact their business permit was only to buy and sell scrap metal.

They added that after the inspection, they then made a report. The respondents denied the allegations of the complainant that they used the name of OBO and that they refused to present their IDs. They also denied threatening to call the mayor once they will not be allowed to entry and that did not sign the logbook of the company.

Dargantes said upon evaluation of the evidence of both parties, he found out that the respondents were doing their jobs.

“The fact that a show cause order dated August 2, 2010 was issued by Frasco against USTC for certain violations of its application for a business permit, which apparently emanated from the complaint filed by residents and result of investigation are manifestation that respondents were acting within their authority,” decision reads.

Dargantes said the statement of the complainant that Tiro told him that respondents were not from OBO was unsupported, after no sworn statement was filed by Tiro to shed light on the issue.     - THE FREEMAN