SHE's been in government service for 25 years. Her government record is clean, devoid of any record of corruption. She hasn't faced a single administrative complaint in her long years in public service.

It was therefore a huge surprise-and disappointment-for Leonor P. Esparcia to be booted out as Administrative Assistant III at the city-run JR Borja General Hospital and transferred to the City Library -- as a security detail.

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"I have civil service eligibility and to be assigned as security guard has never crossed my mind," Esparcia said in the dialect. "I'm good at administrative tasks; but can I be a good security guard? No. I have no training for that to start with."

Esparcia said "politics" played a hand in her unceremonious reassignment, which was ordered early last month by then Acting Mayor Vicente Emano.

Her appeal for reconsideration to Mayor Constantino Jaraula was junked early this month.

The city-run hospital is no stranger to political jostling, which at times is blamed on the deterioration of its facilities and services.

Dr. Vincent Tiro, a retired chief of hospital at JR Borja, said political wrangling is to blame partly why the hospital is being deprived with diagnostic apparatus and other crucial life-saving equipment.

Medicines and equipment are offered by politicians from opposing camp, he said, are automatically rejected by incumbents.

He said the practice became common during the Emano administration.

The physician recalled that at one point during the first term of then Mayor Vicente Emano, the latter castigated him for accepting the P2 million worth of medicines from Senator Aquilino Pimentel, a native of Cagayan de Oro and a known political nemesis of Emano's.

"I received it with all gratefulness as then the chief of the hospital as it would mean more service for the sick and needy. I never thought I would be chided for doing what is right," Dr. Tiro said.

"Politics is very well entrenched at the hospital, from the appointment and removal of personnel, up to the distribution of medicines to barangays," he said.

Esparcia said her "demotion" happened when she "referred" poor patients who had difficulties in paying their bills to Representative Rolando Uy (1st district), whose office allot funds for medical assistance.

The congressman is also a known political enemy of Emano's.

Prior to her October 5 reassignment, Esparcia received a memorandum from Vice Mayor Emano, directing her to explain why she acted as "guarantor" for patients bearing promissory notes from Uy.

She said she was never politically-inclined to digest the gist of the vice mayor's memorandum, as there was "never any malice nor political meaning in my helping poor patients."

For Tiro, the former hospital chief, risking the ire of City Hall had mattered little compared to the benefits that patients can get out of the donated medical items.

Once, he vainly tried to accept a CT scan donated by Senator Pimentel, which he said was "very much needed" in any hospital to help diagnose various medical conditions. Poor patients, he added, need not go to private hospitals and spend P3,000 for a CT scan.

Tiro said the equipment went to the already equipped Northern Mindanao Medical Center (NMMC) instead because Emano would not want it in the city-run hospital.

Weeks later, Tiro said he was fired as chief of the hospital and detailed to another department until he retired in early 2000.

Capitulation, however, is not a choice for Esparcia, as she plans to contest her reassignment to a lower post before the Civil Service Commission.

She is currently on a one-month leave.

Emano declined an interview for this story. (DVAIII)