UPV exec charged with neglect of duty over undelivered lab kit
An engineer and section chief of the University of the Philippines in the Visayas (UPV) was formally charged with Neglect of Duty in an administrative case filed before the Office of the Chancellor here.
The respondent, Miguel Paguntalan Jr. of the Supply and Property Services Office (SPSO) was probed by peers in a preliminary investigation that sought to establish prima facie case over an undelivered parcel.
The controversial package was a Histamine Veratox kit intended for the experiments of Professor Ernestina Peralta, project leader of Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA) - funded projects.
The kit apparently reached the lady professor nearly two months late and "damaged" for not having been properly stored in a low temperature area. University probers in its preliminary investigation ruled that responsibility for such occurrence fell on Paguntalan.
"That such negligent act not only prejudiced the AFMA funded project but more so it caused damage and injury to the University," excerpts of the Formal Charge went.
As such, Paguntalan was ordered to make official his explanation with further option of a formal investigation or waive such right thus, accept the consequences as so stipulated in existing university rules.
The beleaguered section chief opted to be formally investigated after having been subject of the "preliminary" one.
Docketed as UPV-ILO-ADT Case No. 06-001, Paguntalan through counsel, lawyer Cornelio Panes denied the charges while adding that a formal investigation will enable him to "verify allegations and confront the witnesses against him and formally present his own evidence."
Initial information obtained by The News Today (TNT) disclosed the engineer’s explanation that acknowledged receipt of the questioned parcel and subsequent delivery to the table of one "Ms. Anacleta Nunez."
Nunez appeared to be the addressee with corresponding address "UPV Miag-ao, Iloilo."
The Histamine Veratox kit, on the other hand, came from the Glenwood Technologies International Inc., a new UPV supplier, Paguntalan pointed out.
"The package has no written indication about the nature of its content and neither was there any instruction that would cause respondent to perform a required act, if need be, relative thereto (like the need for it to be refrigerated) except to forward it to the addressee," Paguntalan in his defense stated. "Respondent, who then was taking the duties of Ms. Tunay who was on leave, had not known of Glenwood before as a supplier of UPV, thus, he gave the benefit of doubt in favor of the presumption that it was a personal package for Ms. Nunez. To respondent, it could have been different if it was addressed as "UPV Miag-ao, Iloilo Attn: Ms. Anacleta Nunez" or "Ms. Anacleta Nunez, Attn: IFPT" because by this, he would have known that it was not a personal package but one for the University, specifically for the Institute of Fish Processing Technology."