Answer anti-graft raps, Mandaluyong mayor urged

Mandaluyong City mayorality candidate Ernesto "Bibot" Domingo rapped yesterday incumbent Mayor Benhur Abalos Jr., for his failure to answer the order the Office of the Ombudsman last month, to explain his alleged misuse of an estimated P1.8 billion in city funds.

Domingo filed the graft charges in December last year, based on a 1999. Commission on Audit report detailing the alleged fiscal mismanagement of Abalos.

Abalos’ father, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority chair Benjamin Abalos Sr., former Mandaluyong mayor, downplayed the graft case and questioned the motive behind its filing.

Abalos Sr., said the COA report has been there for so long already, and that Domingo’s camp is bringing it up only now because the election is just a week away.

The young Abalos, on the other hand, claimed that the so-called "missing" P1.39-billion assets of the Mandaluyong government spans 30 years covering four mayors and three treasurers.

"It did not happen during my term only," he said.

Domingo stressed that politics had nothing to do with the charges, saying that he filed the case even before the election period began.

Pelagio Apostol, director of the Evaluation and Preliminary Investigation Bureau of the Ombudsman, ordered Abalos to answer the charges last March 23.

Domingo, in his affidavit, claimed that Abalos committed crimes constituting technical malversation of public funds.

The COA report showed that Abalos failed to conduct physical inventory of fixed assets amounting to P1.39 billion.

The city government also allegedly failed to reconcile the discrepancy of P169.27 million of cash account between the treasury and accounting records.

The failure of the city government to implement existing auditing and accounting rules also resulted in the accumulation of unliquidated cash advances totaling to P132.5 million, the COA said.

It adds that the city’s general fund of P4.5 million used to finance special education fund expenses that were not appropriated, accumulating to P64.46 million.

Meanwhile, Abalos Sr. urged the Domingo camp to follow the case up on the Ombudsman, instead of pressuring his son to answer the charges.

"Obviously, all this is just for media mileage. If they really want something to be done on the case, they should press the Ombudsman for it," he said.

He also claimed that Domingo himself was facing charges before the Sandiganbayan for allegedly taking home some office supplies before he resigned as city vice mayor in 1998.

"This happened during my term, but I did not press any charges against him because I knew it was election time then. All I am trying to say is that we should also ask who (Domingo) is," Abalos Sr. said.