The first case was filed by one Juan Pring, one of the founders of the Lingkod Group, a voluntary public service association which launched the Dulugan Bayan project against graft and corruption.
Torres was accused of grave misconduct for allowing his administrative officer to officiate marriages and then later signing the marriage certificates.
On Sept. 1 last year, the Office of the Ombudsman, however, found Torres administratively liable only for simple misconduct and ordered the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) to suspend him. The suspension was carried out only on Dec. 24 last year and is supposed to last up to this March 24.
The order was signed by Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales and other Ombudsman officials.
But last Feb. 1, however, the Office of the Ombudsman, acting on another complaint of Pring accusing Torres of grave misconduct, issued another suspension order that found the already suspended mayor of yet another simple misconduct case.
The Ombudsman ordered Torres to be suspended for another month and a day.
Pring said that the case stemmed from his complaint that Torres had used some P2.7 million funds for the beautification of the town plaza. He said the fund was for the purchase of a barangay bulldozer and was used for the plaza despite lack of ordinance.
He explained that the new suspension order based on the administrative aspect on the use of the P2.7 million fund, while the criminal aspect was ordered to be filed before the Regional Trial Court.
In a telephone interview, Torres said he saw politics in the cases against him, but did not elaborate. “In the case of the town plaza, my signature on the project was the last, after those who had signed in approval of it, yet I am the only one being charged,” he noted.
Pring, who said he is a bishop of a local evangelical church, also said he had filed seven other charges before the Ombudsman against Torres, including five on the continuing holding of marriages in the town hall even after the mayor was indicted by the Ombudsman on the first case.
