Wednesday, November 21, 2007 Suspended Capitol workers ‘not source of CICC docs’
WERE the two employees suspended for stealing documents on the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) coerced into admitting a crime they did not commit?
Businessman Crisologo Saa-vedra believes so and assured that Doy Aloba and Matthew Garcia were not the source of the documents he used as basis for the complaint he lodged at the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas.
And even if they were, the businessman wondered why Capitol needed to suspend them.
“Was the Provincial Government damaged because of the action? If at all, it was beneficial to the people of the Province of Cebu because they now have a better picture of what happened,” he said.
“They were giving the right information. It did not, by and in itself, malign the governor. It only contained figures in a government transaction,” he added.
He wondered what the big fuss is all about, stressing that the two Capitol employees are being deprived of their work for a document that is public in nature.
“These are public documents. It’s supposed to be no big deal and should even be welcomed in the spirit of transparency,” he said.
“This only shows that the content of the document was really damaging to the administration,” Saavedra added.
And if the two Capitol employees took copies of the document to satisfy their own curiosity, it is still within their rights, he said.
“They are taxpayers too, even if they are employees,” he said.
Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia, however, defended her move saying it should serve as warning to others.
“I just want to send a message that I mean business, but more than that, let’s do our job and let’s do it right,” she said.
“I always reward good work but behavior such as that will be dealt with accordingly,” she said.
Aside from the two, the governor said there are others implicated in the stealing of CICC documents.
Others are also being investigated for their tardiness.
“They probably did not take me as seriously in the first term, maybe things will be different in my second term,” said Gov. Garcia.
Aloba and Garcia, both of the General Services Office (GSO), were charged with dishonesty and have been placed under 30-day suspension over their alleged involvement in the leak.
The penalty was a result of an investigation conducted by Capitol Consultant Hippocrates Rocina. They would have been dismissed had their admission not been treated as a mitigating circumstance in determining the penalty.
Saavedra said he does not know what the two supposedly leaked to him but suspects that the Capitol is referring to the statement of account sent by WT Construction.
Saavedra used the document in support of his allegation that the CICC costs the government P200 million more than the P581 million that the governor, in a press conference last May 3, said was spent.
In a forum held a month later, the governor admitted that the amount might hit P793.19 million but that she was still verifying the figures.
Saavedra had revealed that CICC contractor WT Construction, in a billing last Feb. 21, charged the Capitol P261,217,866.
The expenditure was broken down into two components: P85,265,407 for electrical and plumbing works and P175,951,478 for site development, and structural, civil and agricultural works. (KNR/JGA)
