Jones, Isabela—Mayor Leticia Sebastian on Wednesday strongly denied allegations of using the town’s Senior Citizens Fund for election expenditures.
In a phone interview, Sebastian told Manila Standard: “We are under Comelec Control. The Department of Social Welfare and Development Central Office had withheld the allocations as per memorandum given to me and the P2,400 annual social pension of our senior citizens would be distributed after elections.”
“The fund is intact and it is not used for my campaign for my last-term bid,” she added.
The senior citizens’ pension fund is still intact and would be ready for release, according to the provincial social welfare and development office of Isabela.
According to Provincial Social Welfare Officer Lillia Ambatali, the funds are from the National Government “and it would not be downloaded as of these time to LGUs yet.”
“Our central office [DSWD] had intentionally stopped the release of these social pensions so that it would not be used by unscrupulous politicians for their personal funds during the campaign period,” she said.
However, Ambatali said in towns and cities under Commission on Elections control, any financial allocations from the Nationals Government are stopped, except its monthly and quarterly Internal Revenue Allotment “because those monies are intended for the operations of the LGUs.”
The furor over funds misuse started when former Deputy Speaker and Isabela 4th District Rep. Giorgidi Aggabao accused Sebastian of using the senior citizens’ fund for her coordinators and poll watchers’ fees over the weekend in a campaign sortie in Barangay Dos, this town.
Jones was declared under Comelec Control last March after the shooting and death of a retired policeman and his children last May 2016. The policeman’s wife survived the ambush but would be disabled for life, doctors said.
The victims are relatives of Sebastian’s political opponent, Melanie Zapata Uy.
During the joint peace conference of the police North Luzon Command, Department of the Interior and Local Government, and Comelec, Jones was considered an election hot spot because of the presence of partisan armed groups and private armies operating in Southern Isabela, who are based in the municipality.
The situations worsened when the 86th Infantry Battalion captured two New People’s Army rebels reportedly spreading subversive propaganda and fliers against Sebastian, a few weeks after the joint conference in Camp Aquino, Tarlac.
The police also foiled another assassination attempt against Sebastian, nabbing two would-be assassins doing surveillance around the house of the village chief of Barangay Dos. They were caught with three hand grenades, two caliber .45 pistols, and a picture of the mayor, her family, and son in law.