CLARK FREEPORT – Mabalacat City Mayor Crisostomo C. Garbo and four other city officials are now in hot water for failing to give the salaries of thousands of job order (JO) or contractual employees of the city government since November last year.
During the “Talk Widus” media forum organized by the Pampanga Press Club (PPC) in cooperation with the Widus Hotel and Casino here on Wednesday, Mabalacat City Vice Mayor Christian Halili said a case of technical malversation was filed against Garbo and four other city officials – city accountant Atty. Aileen C. Rigor, acting treasurer Marlene M. Mendiola, human resources and management officer Merla P. De Leon and acting budget officer Narce P. Paquia – by members of the sangguniang panlungsod).
This, even as city legal officer Atty. Emmanuel E. Ignacio branded the filing of the complaint “premature due to a lack of COA fi ndings” and threatened to file plunder charges against former mayor Marino “Boking” Morales.
Councilors Rogelio “Jeng” Yumul and Jerry M. Basilio filed the case against the said officials on January 4 before the Office of the Ombudsman for “illegal use of public funds under Article 220 of the Revised Penal Code.”
According to the joint-complaint affidavit of the two councilors, Garbo, Rigor, Mendiola, De Leon and Paquia “conspired, acted together and aided each other in misappropriating the funds allocated for the salaries and wages of 1,585 JO employees for the period of January to December 2018” despite Appropriation Ordinance No. 6-2017 where the said 1,585 JOs were appropriated with P8,160 individual monthly salaries for the same period.
The complaint also said the same five city officials also “conspired, acted together and aided each other in misappropriating the funds allocated for the salaries and wages of the additional 1,000 JOs for the period of July to December 2018.”
On August 9, 2018, upon the request of Garbo, the city council passed Appropriation No. 8-2018 worth P70 million wherein the salaries and wages of the additional 1,000 JOs with designated monthly salaries of P8,160 each for the period of July to December 2018 were included.
But on November 16, 2018, the JOs stopped receiving their salaries/ wages, the complaint said.
The reason given by the acting city treasurer and human resources officer is that the city council (SP) “refused to pass a budget ordinance for the salaries of the said JOs.”
The truth of the matter, according to Yumul and Basilio, the city council already appropriated and approved the salaries of the 1,585 JOs for the period of January to December 2018 as indicated in Appropriation Ordinance No. 6-2017 and the salaries of the additional 1,000 JOs for the period of July to December 2018 as indicated in Appropriations No. 8-2018 and there is no reason why the said workers did not receive their salaries.
En banc
To resolve the issue, an en banc session of the SP was called on November 28, 2018 and the said officials were all invited to clarify the matter regarding the failure of the JOs to receive their salaries starting Nov. 16, 2018.
In the said en banc session, Yumul and Basilio said it was discovered that Garbo and the four officials “making use of their positions, misappropriated the appropriated and approved salaries/wages of the 2,585 JOs.”
When asked by the SP on why the JOs did not receive their salaries; the city accountant replied that, “she cannot disclose anything.”
However, “the acting city budget officer disclosed that the approved appropriation for the wages of the JOs was utilized for the payment of (another) 301 JOs with special rates ranging from P10,000 to P50,000 each which is contrary to the request for which the approved appropriation for the wages of the 2,585 JOs was made.”
As of Wednesday, the city government has yet to comply with the SP’s request for the list of names of the 301 JOs with special rates.
It was also cited in the complaint sheet that during a subsequent TV interview over CLTV 36, Garbo reasoned that he was just, “performing my discretionary matter because under the law naman basta naka budget yan…” when asked why the funds for the salaries of the workers were used in another transaction. That is why, the mayor said, he is appealing to the SP to approve his request for another P204 million supplemental budget.
But the councilors said there is no reason for the executive department not to pay the wages of the workers since the funds were already earmarked, approved and received by the executive department.
Special
The SP said further that it did not approve the 301 JOs with salaries ranging from P10,000 to P50,000 because the policy of the Civil Service Commission provides that the rate of the JO should not exceed the rates of professionals in the private sector. It added that an explanation should also be submitted as to why they were hired with special rates.
Yumul and Basilio said some of the special rate JOs are not even degree holders and are only doing menial work.
The SP said, “it is also suspicious that the request for the budget for the additional 1,000 JOs was made less than six months remaining in the fiscal year 2018 and less than one year before the elections on May 13.
But what is more disturbing it said was that another supplemental budget was requested in the amount of P204 million when only two months are left in the current fiscal year.
The SP said the resident auditor has been quiet on the matter and an invitation for him to appear before the body was not received by his office because “he could not be found.”
Yumul said they have already requested a special audit from the Commission on Audit (COA).
Premature
For his part, city legal officer Atty. Emmanuel E. Ignacio said the filing of the complaint is “premature due to a lack of COA findings” while threatening to file plunder charges against former mayor Marino “Boking” Morales.
Ignacio said Garbo did not yet receive a formal copy of the complaint as of press time and reasoned that the said funds “are generic, they are not trust funds that are intended for specific purposes.”
Ignacio also denied allegations that the funds appropriated for the JOs were used to compensate the 301 JOs with special rates.
Meanwhile, former mayor Marino “Boking” Morales lamented the plight of the workers saying they should have been prioritized in the budget. Morales recalled that when he became mayor in 1995, the then municipality of Mabalacat has only P33 million revenue and when he left in 2017, it ballooned to P1.5 billion with a surplus of about P300 million.
He said in less than two years of Mayor Garbo’s administration, the city is now bankrupt.
