OMBUDSMAN Conchita Carpio Morales ordered on Monday the six-month suspension of Bukidnon Gov. Jose Ma. Zubiri Jr., the father of Senator Miguel Zubiri, for grave abuse of authority.
At the same time, Morales ordered the filing of four counts of malversation and four counts of malversation through falsification of documents against former Bukidnon Rep. Candido Pancrudo Jr., who is facing eight counts of graft before the Sandiganbayan in a P49.2 million pork barrel fund scam in 2007.
Morales directed Interior and Local Government Secretary Ismael Sueno to implement Zubiri’s suspension.
The Office of the Ombudsman found Zubiri guilty of not only grave abuse of authority “amounting to oppression” but also of violation of Section 5(a) of the Code of Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees or Republic Act 6713.
During investigation, it was found that in January 2013, Zubiri refused to sign the clearance and act on the request for commutation of Carlos Ycaro, the former provincial assessor.
As defense, Zubiri claimed Ycaro could not be cleared due to “missing chairs” which were his property accountability.
In a decision, the Ombudsman ruled “this cannot serve as valid excuse to deny approval of his application for leave commutation, especially where he has more than 300 days in commutable leave credits.”
Zubiri was also faulted for failure “to perform the mandate of Section 5(a) of RA 6713 by completely ignoring the two communications of complainant, addressed to his office.”
According to records at the Office of the Ombudsman, from November 2007 to June 2008, the Department of Budget and Management released P49.2 million as part of Pancrudo’s Priority Development Assistance Fund.
Pancrudo channeled his funds through the Technology Resource Center and National AgriBusiness Corp. with Farmerbusiness Development Corp. and Uswag Pilipinas Foundation Inc. as non-government organization-partners.
He–– said the P49.2-million PDAF was used to fund the training and livelihood seminars for his constituents in Bukidnon’s District 1.
“There is no evidence that the funds were used to finance training and livelihood seminars conducted, or to the purchase the training kits,” the report of the Commission on Audit read.
Apart from the denial of the supposed beneficiaries that they received any livelihood training kits, the Ombudsman observed the lack of public bidding in the selection of NGO-partners, absence of liquidation of public funds, and unusual accommodation in the examination, processing and approval of PDAF releases to the NGOs all completed in one day.
“These repeated, illegal transfers of public funds to FDC’s control, purportedly for projects which did not exist, and just as repeated irregular disbursements, represent quantifiable pecuniary losses to the government,” the Ombudsman further stated.