Ombud junks streetlights raps vs Dingle mayor, 4 others
The Office of the Ombudsman Visayas has dismissed the criminal case on the alleged questionable streetlights purchase filed by dismissed Dingle town engineer Cornelio Pedregosa against Mayor Rufino Palabrica III and four municipal department heads in December 2008.
The dismissal is contained in the 14-page resolution dated Aug. 25, 2009, approved by Deputy Ombudsman for Luzon Mark Jalandoni, following a recommending approval from Deputy Ombudsman for the Visayas Pelagio Apostol.
Palabrica’s office furnished The News Today a copy of the resolution.
“There is absence of well-grounded and reasonable belief that respondents perpetrated these acts in a criminal manner they are accused of, thus, there is no basis for declaring the existence of probable cause,” the resolution penned by Graft Investigation and Prosecution Officer I Edsel Ensomo said.
The four other respondents are Municipal Budget Officer Romeo Deala, Municipal Planning and Development Officer Romeo Librando, Municipal Treasurer Jocelyn Devera, and Municipal Accountant Joyfa Ramos.
Deala and Librando are chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the
Bids and Awards Committee.
In his criminal complaint, Pedregosa claimed that Palabrica influenced the BAC in awarding the contract worth P37,840 for Brgy. Sinibaan streetlights extension project to TRI-B Marketing, supposedly owned by the mayor and his wife Theresa Palabrica.
Pedregosa also claimed that TRI-B Marketing were given three bid forms to prepare the prices for other suppliers.
But Palabrica said that TRI-B Marketing is already formerly owned by his wife as she already gave up the business before he was elected mayor, and waived her rights in the business in favor of Eden Castañeda thus Theresa ceased to be its proprietor effective June 11, 2007.
The mayor further said that Pedregosa had an “axe to grind” against him as he ordered the complainant’s dismissal from service for serious dishonesty and gross neglect of duty.
Deala, Librando and Devera said the purchase of the materials was done in a regular procedure and in accordance with the negotiated mode of procurement. They also contended that TRI-B Marketing offered the lowest price quotation.
Ramos said the check was released to Castañeda, who named the business TRI-B Marketing *T, only after she submitted new invoices under the new business name because she had earlier used the old charge invoices bearing the name “TRI-B Marketing.”
Devera and Ramos also said they were implicated in the case because they stood as witnesses of Ro Beriones, who filed the serious dishonesty and gross neglect of duty complaints against Pedregosa, which led to the latter’s dismissal from service.
‘No Probable Cause’
Graft Investigation and Prosecution Officer I Edsel Ensomo said that “after a meticulous examination of the pleadings of both parties, giving due consideration to documentary evidences in support of their contending allegations, this Office believes that there is no probable cause to hold respondents for violation of Section 3 (a) of Republic Act 3019.”
Section 3 (a) considers unlawful “persuading, inducing or influencing another public officer to perform an act constituting a violation of rules and regulations duly promulgated by competent authority.”
He added, “complainant failed to substantiate his allegation that respondent mayor influenced the members of the BAC.”
Ensomo said the charge for violation of Section 3(e), or causing any undue injury to any party, including the government, “holds no water.”
His resolution also stated, “(i)n this case, respondent Palabrica is never a chairman or a member of the Bids and Awards Committee. He is also not the one who draws the purchase request but the herein complainant Cornelio Pedregosa.”
It added, “It is with more reason that this Office has to dismiss the instant charge against the respondents for lack of ‘actual intervention’ in the questioned transaction.”
Dismissed, Affirmed
Meanwhile, the Civil Service Commission through Chairman Francisco Duque, in a resolution dated July 12, 2010, also dismissed Pedregosa’s appeal, assailing Palabrica’s Nov. 10, 2008 decision finding the former municipal engineer guilty of grave misconduct, dishonesty, and gross neglect of duty and imposing on him a penalty of dismissal from service.
Instead, Duque affirmed the Palabrica decision with modification. *NLG
