Tuesday, September 25, 2007 2 CH workers no-show after facing dishonesty raps
TWO Cebu City Hall workers skipped work yesterday after Mayor Tomas Osmeña placed them under preventive suspension for 60 days for “dishonest actuations.”
Although Hector Sanchez and Rodrigo Manapat were assigned at the Office of the City market administrator, they were detailed at the City Treasurer’s Office (CTO) when they allegedly committed the offenses.
Sanchez allegedly tampered with the resident certificates (cedulas) he issued, while Manabat “did not remit” to the CTO the 2003 business tax payment of Rodrigo Rivera, a stallholder at the Carbon Public Market Unit 3.
Both regular employees, Sanchez’s plantilla is metro aide 1, while that of Manapat is utility worker 2.
In issuing the order, the mayor said there is a need to protect the integrity of records and witnesses needed in the administrative investigation against the two.
Report
Osmeña decided to suspend Sanchez and Manabat after receiving an investigation report on their infractions from retired police colonel Orlando Secretario, in-house investigator, last Sept. 6.
“Upon careful and thorough examination of the said investigation report, this office is of the firm belief that there is a need for further…investigation to determine your administrative liabilities by reason of your dishonest actuations,” the mayor said.
The City Attorney’s Office, through the Employee, Management Committee on Investigation, was tasked to conduct the administrative investigation.
A source told Sun.Star Cebu that Sanchez was investigated after a student complained to the mayor last August why he paid more than what a classmate shelled out for a resident certificate.
Sanchez issued cedulas at the City Hall annex building’s ground floor.
The source said the mayor had just exited the elevator and was on his way to his vehicle when he overheard the student complaining.
Surprised
“We were surprised why the mayor went up to our office and inquired about it (discrepancy on cedula payments). It was because the student complained to him why he paid P20 when a classmate paid just P10,” the source added.
In a separate interview, Market Administrator Raquel Arce said she found the anomaly involving Manabat when she checked the records on business permit payments by market stallholders.
Arrest
The extra effort was made following the recent arrest of a City Hall employee faking government documents, which include business permits.
She said that a “syndicate” operating in the city has the capability of “blocking” searches when the City counter-checks payments so that though the non-payment was made in 2003 yet, they discovered it just now.
“We don’t know how they do it. But they were able to hide the unpaid account so that what will show in our records is that the stallholder was already cleared, or have already paid,” she said in Cebuano.
Arce said the executive department instructed her to pressure Rivera to divulge who took his payment.
“I told him that the mayor wanted him to cooperate. Although what he allegedly paid in business tax was just P14,000, it already ballooned to P23,000. As a compromise, we would not issue a closure order on him as long as he would tell us whom he approached to facilitate his payment,” Arce said in Cebuano.
Rivera buckled and squealed on Manapat, whom Arce said swore that he gave the money to somebody at CTO.
“But he would say to whom he gave the payment,” Arce said. (RHM)
