The Ombudsman has dismissed graft and administrative charges filed against Bacolod Mayor Evelio Leonardia and seven other city officials, a press release from the Bacolod Public Information Office said today, December 15.
The cases docketed as OMB-V-C-17-0192 and OMB-V-A-17-0185 were filed by the Field Investigation Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas on the basis of a 2009 complaint of Sarah Teresa Esguerra and Othello Ramos.
The respondents were required to file their counter-affidavits only in 2017, the press release said.
Esguerra and Ramos alleged that Leonardia, et al, violated the Government Procurement Law, in 2007, when they allowed periodic mostly small-value purchases of various materials necessary for the continued day-to-day operations of the Bacolod City Government through reimbursement basis and not through the modes allowed under R.A. 9184 (Government Procurement Law).
The complainants’ primary evidence was a COA audit observation in 2007 calling the attention of the Bacolod LGU then that the procurements should have already been made under R.A. 9184 and its Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR).
Esguerra and Ramos further alleged conspiracy among the respondents claiming that the latter connived with each other to defraud the government with these reimbursements for personal gain.
Leonardia on Monday, December 14, received the joint resolution approved by Ombudsman Sammuel Martires on August 6, 2019 yet, dismissing the graft and administrative charges filed against him and 7 other city officials.
“What a great blessing to receive at Christmas time”, Leonardia said of the dismissal of the charges.
“This is another of the many political harassment cases that Sarah Esguerra and Othello Ramos had launched against us over the years. As well-known supporters of that former city mayor of Bacolod, we know what their motives were when they filed the complaint in 2009, before an election year,” he said.
The seven other respondents in the case were former City Accountant Eduardo Ravena, then Secretary to the Mayor-Designate Goldwyn Nifras, former Vice-Mayor Renecito Novero, former City Administrator Lorendo Dilag. former Vice Mayor Jude Thaddeus Sayson, former OIC/Management Audit Services Office Ricardo Dahildahil, and former Secretary to the Mayor Rogelio Balo.
In its Joint Resolution, the Ombudsman ruled that it found no sufficient evidence to sustain a finding of probable cause against Leonardia, et. al. for violating Section 3 (e) of R.A. 3019, as amended.
Neither did the Ombudsman find substantial evidence that respondents were guilty of the administrative charges of Conduct Prejudicial to the Best Interest of the Service and for Grave Misconduct.
The Joint Resolution dismissing the cases were co-signed by officials of the Office of the Deputy Ombudsman for the Visayas, all of whom recommended for the dismissal of the cases.
The combined defenses of the respondents sufficiently demolished the malicious allegations of Esguerra and Ramos, the press release said.
The respondents argued that reimbursements were a mode of procurement relied upon many years before by past administrations, and were not previously disallowed by the COA.
They also said reimbursements are not illegal per se because, even with the advent of R.A. 9184, such were not totally outlawed in government operations or absolutely prohibited by any government regulation.
Respondents further manifested that in 2007, Bacolod, like other LGUs then, was still in the process of transitioning from the old to the new procurement methods.
In fact, at that time, LGUs were still being trained for it by the Government Procurement Policy Board (GPPB), which was also in the process of periodically adjusting and refining the IRR for R.A. 9184 to address certain needs in government procurements that it did not completely foresee when it drafted the earlier editions of said IRR, the press release said.
Aside from failing to prove their allegation of conspiracy, complainants also never established that the reimbursements were for bogus or “ghost” transactions without corresponding deliveries, or that the reimbursements were made against falsified documents, the press release added.
For lack of sufficient evidence that would completely fulfill all the elements of the crime under Section 3 (e) of R.A. 3019, as amended, the Ombudsman dismissed both the criminal and administrative charges.
The Ombudsman said while “check payments were made to different payees yet there is no indication that the goods procured were not delivered. Thus, evidence to the effect that undue injury was categorically caused to the government or that respondent/s or any party benefited from the lack of public bidding in the procurement of the subject goods is deficient.”*