Ombudsman restoring sacked bureaucrats

Public Works and Highways Secretary Rogelio Singson is livid. The Ombudsman wants him to reinstate a regional chief long sacked for dishonesty and false statements of net worth from 1999 to 2002. Resisting, Singson senses undue haste in the Ombudsman’s reversal of the case of former Metro Manila director Josefino Nacpil Rigor. He thinks that restoring Rigor to his old post would set back the DPWH push to rid itself of bad eggs. Singson reportedly has saved in the past nine months P1.1 billion by re-bidding road projects spiked with kickbacks.

Singson received the reinstatement order Monday. Dated May 13, it was signed by Orlando Casimiro, acting Ombudsman since Merceditas Gutierrez resigned May 6 and search is ongoing for an alternate. Singson wondered why Rigor last week already asked for return to his old post, when the DPWH had yet to get formal notice from the Ombudsman. “He seems to be influential with them,” Singson was quoted as remarking about the other party’s advanced info.

Singson recalled being given, upon assumption as secretary in July 2010, an order by the Ombudsman firing Rigor. He enforced it. Rigor (who could not be reached for comment) appealed the ruling. Last Friday, Casimiro lightened the offense to simple negligence, for which Rigor paid P1,000 fine.

The Ombudsman had filed charges against Rigor as far back as 2004, but he scored a series of court victories. In 2008 Sen. Bong Revilla demanded his sacking for messing up river dredging and bridge works in the national capital. Higher-ups transferred him to Central Visayas.

Though forced to take in Rigor, Singson believes he has “management prerogative” to not assign him key tasks. “I might give him a desk near the toilet,” he says, while the Office of the Solicitor General appeals the Ombudsman reversal.

Similarly the Customs bureau was forced to reinstate its sacked police chief, the controversial Jose Yuchongco. The Ombudsman had removed Yuchongco in February for false declarations of net worth from 1994 to 2004. Supposedly he failed to list among his assets a mansion in Metro Manila, a rest house in Batangas, farms in Southern Tagalog and Bicol, the proceeds of the sale of another house in Metro Manila, and alleged multimillion-peso lotto winnings. Three months later the Ombudsman ordered him back. This was on the say-so of Ombudsman Gutierrez last May 4, two days before stepping down.

Customs head Angelito Alvarez said he had no choice but to accept Yuchongco last Monday on advice of finance department lawyers. Finance officials have asked the Solicitor General to appeal this case too.

Expect more reinstatements and midnight reversals to unravel in the next few weeks. Transparency is a weapon against corruption, but the anti-graft agency is noted for opacity. Rep. Neri Colmenares, one of the impeachment complainants against Gutierrez, has denounced her midnight promotion of eight directors and special prosecutors. Word is that she actually appointed more than 30, in several waves during her last weeks in office.

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READERS’ FEEDBACK. Sinned Ibaf: “Have we Filipinos sunk this low, blaming the wideness and U-turn slots of Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City, for the frequent accidents there? Are not drivers the ones in control of the wheel, and pedestrians of their will in stubbornly crossing the highway instead of using the overpasses?”

Godofredo Robes: “Stolen vehicles in America reach Asia not through US ports. They are driven south across the Mexican border, onto container vans to Singapore, Hong Kong or Kaoshiung, thence elsewhere. US Customs does not allow ship out without the pink slip — a certificate of vehicle purchase and registration with the Department of Motor Vehicles. If the stolen vehicle is equipped with LoJack (a device to track laptops or shipments against theft) the police will be able to track it even inside a container van. If Lynard Allan Bigcas denies that 11 of the 29 vehicles confiscated from him were stolen in America, all he has to do is show the pink slips.”

Name withheld upon request: “Many of us employees at the Office of the Ombudsman admire you for exposing Gutierrez’s plea bargain with General Garcia. Gutierrez was very amiable, but she entrusted most of the work to a corrupt, incompetent trusty. Closeness to that person became the basis for promotion. Demoralization spread. The other deputies could do nothing.”

Nomer Obnamia: “The shenanigans going on in our country are amazing. I tip my hat to you for not giving up exposing them. But then, don’t you get frustrated, since most Filipinos don’t seem to care? Like, Colonel Rabusa is now compelled to find money to reproduce his charge sheet against 17 plunderers. To think that this is a government case, not a personal one by a retiree. A citizen will think twice before blowing the whistle, because the machinery of injustice is just too strong.”

Raul F. Borjal, president, AsiaOne Global Resources Inc., Makati: “Colonel Rabusa can open a bank account to which ordinary citizens can send contributions to help him prosecute the corrupt generals. It’s about time people helped in the heroic efforts of the likes of Colonel Rabusa to make government officials accountable.”

Incidentally, the reason Rabusa needs to raise money is to reproduce 32 sets of his charge sheet, each with about 5,000 pages of documentary evidence, two feet thick. The number of accused is now 23, from 17 retired and active-duty generals and colonels. Corroborating witnesses are now four, from two. He will need a flatbed truck to deliver to the Department of Justice on May 27.

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