OMBUDSMAN Conchita Carpio Morales suspended the wrong governor for grave abuse of authority, Bukidnon Gov. Jose Ma. Zubiri Jr. said Tuesday, adding he was ordered suspended for six months “clearly by mistake.”
The Ombudsman had suspended Zubiri for allegedly refusing to act on the former provincial assessor’s clearance and request for leave commutation.
But Zubiri said there was a mix-up in the decision of The Office of the Ombudsman and called on Morales to immediately review their findings and rectify their mistake.
He slammed the Ombudsman for the release of its statement to the media before he could be provided with a copy of the suspension order.
“The Ombudsman ordered the suspension of the wrong governor,” Zubiri said.
“The Ombudsman says that in January 2013 I supposedly refused to act on the former provincial assessor’s clearance and request for leave commutation.
“But it was impossible for me to have committed those omissions because I was not the governor in January 2013. In fact, I was not the governor from July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2013.
“I simply did not have the authority to sign clearances and leave commutations at that time. I never even saw the provincial assessor’s papers.”
Zubiri said he was not the sitting governor in January 2013 when the supposed abuse of authority was committed. It was governor Alex Calingasan who could have properly endorsed former provincial assessor Carlos Ycaro’s papers.
“Only Calingasan could have, and should have, acted on those papers,” Zubiri said, because he was then Calingasan’s vice governor.
In its official website, the Ombudsman posted that Zubiri was 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.