Paulate blames staff for 'ghost' employees

MANILA, Philippines - Quezon City Councilors Roderick Paulate and Francisco Calalay Jr. asked the Office of the Ombudsman yesterday to junk the charges filed against them, stressing that they did not know anything about their having alleged “ghost” employees on the payroll.

Both blamed their own people and politics for the baseless allegations being hurled against them, which prompted Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales to issue a six-month preventive suspension order against them and their liason officers last week.

 “I vehemently deny all the malicious charges leveled against me,” Paulate said in his counter affidavit noting that like Calalay, the job order employees he has “were merely endorsed to me by my staff or coordinators.”

He said the employees were “allegedly loyal supporters” and since they were “too numerous” and he was “much too busy drafting ordinances,” he would ask his staff to monitor the attendance and output of the job order employees, who were assigned to do political tasks in his district.

The Ombudsman’s Field Investigation Office (FIO), as the complainant in the cases, said Calalay allegedly maintained 29 ghost employees from January 2010 to November 2010 while Paulate had 30 ghost employees from July 2010 to November 2010.

Paulate said the complaint was “obviously filed to muddle the upcoming local elections in 2013 since I am interested in running for a higher position and considering further that I am an easy prey because of the high impact on media this alleged scandal would create.”

He said the original complainant in the case against him, Jimmy Lee Davis, has already issued an affidavit stating that the complaint against him “was initiated for the sole purpose of besmirching respondents’ reputation and harassing herein respondents.”