Don’t use us for politics, Batangas health co-op pleads

The Batangas Health Multi-Purpose Cooperative (BHMPC), which has been dragged into a graft case filed against chief state prosecutor Jovencio Zuño, said their group is apparently being used by some quarters for selfish political ends.

In a statement, Dr. Marcelino Malabanan, director of the Batangas Provincial Hospital and chairman of the BHMPC board, said they were surprised when they read in the papers that a criminal case they filed against an erring cooperative official in September 2000 has become the basis for the charges against Zuño.

Malabanan said they filed a case of estafa against the cooperative’s former treasurer, Joy Gutierrez, for the latter’s alleged failure to account for P782,393 in cooperative funds which was supposed to be in her possession.

Gutierrez was appointed BHMPC treasurer when the group was organized in April 25, 1996 to operate pharmacies in the 12 public hospitals in Batangas in response to the chronic lack of medicines and other medical supplies.

The cooperative has some 700 members, all health workers, in the 12 public hospitals in the province. The directors of the 12 government hospitals sit as members of the BHMPC board, including Zuño’s wife, Eden, the director of the government hospital in Rosario town.

At the time of her appointment as treasurer, Gutierrez was an administrative officer II at the Batangas Provincial Hospital in Lemery town. She has since been promoted to administrative officer III.

Malabanan said that after they filed the case against Gutierrez with the Regional Trial Court Branch 5 in Lemery, her lawyers asked the Department of Justice to review the case. But the DOJ, through the state prosecutor’s office, denied the review petition.

Gutierrez then filed a motion for reconsideration, which was also denied by a panel of prosecutors for lack of merit. A third attempt to seek DOJ intervention in the case was denied with finality.

The reversals at the DOJ prompted Gutierrez’s husband, Aren, to file graft charges against Zuño, claiming that the chief state prosecutor influenced the DOJ decisions because of Mrs. Zuño’s membership in the cooperative.

In the first place, Malabanan said it was Gutierrez’s lawyers who brought the case to the DOJ in an apparent attempt to delay the proceedings in the Lemery RTC.

"Second, the case involves a sum of only P782,393. Yet the reports in the papers said it involves ‘millions of pesos,’" the doctor said. "Some quarters are blowing the case out of proportion."

"The truth is the cooperative is even willing to settle the case as long as we recover a substantial portion of our members’ money. But now, some reports are even identifying Dr. (Eden) Zuño as the one who has been charged with estafa by the BHMPC," Malabanan said.

"We don’t want to be involved in politics. So please do not drag us into this. We just want to set the record straight," he added.