2 Ombudsman-Visayas execs probed over ‘bribe’

CEBU CITY — A fact-finding team from the Ombudsman’s head office in Manila is now in Cebu and has formally started investigating a bribery scandal involving the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas.

Implicated in the alleged bribery are Deputy Ombudsman-Visayas Primo Miro and director Edgardo Canton.

The team, headed by Roy Roque Dator and Pedro Abuzman Jr., has started questioning Canton and members of the panel that handled a case for which Miro and Canton had accepted bribes, as three Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) officials alleged.

The three DAR officials — provincial agrarian reform officers Maria Lourdes Mariano and Virgilio Alcomendras and assistant legal division chief Linda Susan Baring — accused Miro and Canton of oppression, grave abuse of authority and gross neglect of duty in ruling on agrarian reform cases which, they said, were outside the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman.

Last Oct. 12, Miro and Canton charged Mariano, Alcomendras and Baring with graft for awarding lands to supposed non-qualified farmer-beneficiaries in Medellin town despite previous resolutions by an Ombudsman panel dismissing the case for lack of jurisdiction.

The controversy stemmed from a 93-hectare piece of land in Lamintak, Medellin formerly owned by ADA Agricultural and Development Corp.

The land was distributed to at least 27 farmers identified by the DAR as qualified beneficiaries of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), on June 30, 2000.

The ADA management questioned the award, arguing that only seven of the farmers were actual holders of certificates of land ownership award (CLOAs).

The three DAR officials argued that ADA had no legal personality to file charges against the farmers because the land already belonged to the government.

ADA then filed a graft complaint against the three DAR officials whom it accused of awarding undue benefits to supposed non-qualified beneficiaries.

However, the Ombudsman’s panel of investigators, headed by Jane Aguilar, recommended that the case against Alcomendras, Mariano and Baring be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. Miro subsequently approved the recommendation.

But on Oct. 12, Miro reversed his approval and consented to the filing of a case in court against the three DAR officials.

Just before Miro made his about-face, a highly placed source in his own office claimed to have frequently seen Edgardo Labella, one of ADA’s lawyers, in Miro’s office.

Labella was a former Ombudsman director and city councilor.

The Ombudsman insider alleged that ADA had offered Miro and Canton P2 million to render a favorable decision. Miro has denied the allegation. — Freeman News Service