Wednesday, September 26, 2007 Speak out: City Hall lawyer By Marvin Igot Pusok, Lapu-Lapu City
(The letter is addressed to the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas)
I AM reporting for your appropriate action the practice in the Lapu-Lapu City Hall that I noticed in the two instances that I was asked by my employer to process our business permit.
We were told in the one-stop processing center in the ground floor of City Hall that we had to notarize the forms at the City Legal Department at the second floor.
When I went there, I observed that members of the staff (wearing city hall ID cards) were the ones who facilitated the notarization by a lawyer at the City Legal Department for a fee of P100 (last year it was P80 I think).
There were also others who went there and paid for the notarial services.
Can a lawyer working at the City Hall still notarize private referrals?
If so, why is he allowed to use the facilities of his office and staff to do that when the payment goes to him as there is no government receipt issued?
Is it not taking advantage of government resources for private gain?
I won’t mind if the City lawyer will continue to notarize as long as he has his own office outside and pay for his own staff, rental, electricity, etc.
Hope you and also the Mactan Chamber can check on this because I read in the papers that the chamber is now questioning the bad practices at City Hall.
This may not be a big corruption issue but if we compute the number of notarials a day and for the whole year, the income must be big.
