CEBU CITY - The Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas will look into allegations that former Madridejos mayor Lety Mancio ordered the use of public funds to pay for her husband's bail in a criminal case.
Felixberta Pabualan, a municipal treasurer who had supposedly withdrawn a total of P360,000 from the ASPAC Bank, will be included in the fact-finding.
The anti-graft office also wants Mancio and Pabualan investigated for the alleged disbursement of P743,127 to buy an ambulance from Transcraft Transport.
The purchase allegedly did not pass through competitive bidding.
The allegations against Mancio, who lost in her bid for Madridejos vice mayor in the 2010 elections, reached the ombudsman through an unrelated complaint.
Former mayor Doroteo Salazar had complained about Mancio, Pabualan and Budget Officer Bella Oftana for refusing to pay him his terminal leave benefits.
Salazar ran for Madridejos mayor last May and lost. Both he and Mancio ended up on the same provincial ticket of Hilario "Junjun" Davide III and the Liberal Party.
Graft Investigation and Prosecution Officer Allan Francisco Garciano, who has since left the anti-graft office for the judiciary, resolved the complaint Salazar filed against Mancio on Oct. 13, 2006.
The findings, which included a recommendation to reprimand Mancio for failing to respond to an official letter within the prescribed period, were reviewed and endorsed for approval by then-Ombudsman Director Virginia Santiago another 13 days later.
However, it was sent to Manila, where it stayed for more than four years, in compliance with Tanodbayan Merceditas Gutierrez's policy that all cases filed against any public official, regardless of rank, should be sent to her office for review and final approval.
The case was returned to the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas late last week, bearing the approval of Deputy Ombudsman for Luzon Mark Jalandoni, whom Gutierrez authorized to sign in her behalf through a memorandum dated June 11, 2010.
With Mancio no longer in office, the reprimand can no longer be enforced.
In his original complaint, Salazar lamented how his terminal leave benefits as mayor from July 1, 1995 to June 30, 2001, together with that of his wife Zenaida's, as vice mayor from July 1998 to June 2001 and as mayor from July 1, 2001 to June 30, 2004, and that of their son, Frederick's, as councilor from July 1, 2001 to June 30, 2004, have been withheld.
He said he wrote to Municipal Treasurer Pabualan as early as February 18, 2005. He waited a month for Pabualan to reply and when she finally did so, it was only to tell him that the matter had been referred to then-Mayor Mancio and Municipal Budget Officer Oftana.
Salazar said he waited for further word on his request for payment but five months after, and despite many follow-ups, there was still no word from the municipal government.
One such follow-up was a letter he and Zenaida sent on April 25, 2005, to Mancio. The letter did not get a response, hence the complaint.
Garciano, in resolving the main complaint, said payment of accrued leave benefits is subject to the existence of an appropriations ordinance.
He said that none was apparently filed. Salazar, for his part, never submitted supporting documents to his claim. (KNR of Sun.Star Cebu)
