Thursday, September 11, 2008 Ombud to probe 'Kabanay'
THE anti-graft office will docket for a fact-finding inquiry the newspaper reports about allegations that Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes’ relatives run City Hall.
This order came from Deputy Ombudsman-Visayas Pelagio Apostol, said Assistant Ombudsman Virginia Palanca-Santiago in an interview over radio dyLA yesterday.
“We will still see what possible violation of the law Cortes has committed, if the news reports are true,” Santiago said in Bisaya.
The law on local government prohibits the mayor from appointing to City Hall any relatives within the fourth degree of consanguinity.
But after the vice mayor and opposition councilors denounced the mayor’s “Kabanay Unlimited,” the mayor questioned Vice Mayor Carlo Fortuna’s silence about former mayor Thadeo Ouano’s relatives in the previous administration.
Both Cortes and Fortuna served as city councilors before winning higher office in May 2007.
The mayor admitted the accusation has affected him and his relatives. Even his brother Victor Cortes, now based in Barili, did not escape criticism, he said.
The mayor said his family is contemplating their next move against Fortuna, but refused to comment on the ombudsman’s decision to check the “Kabanay Unlimited” allegations.
A document was distributed during the mayor’s press conference yesterday, naming 14 relatives of former mayor Thadeo Ouano and the salaries they received during the previous administration.
Ouano’s daughters Emery Dixon, daughter-in law Cheryl, in-law Johnny Italian and brother Rafael Ouano of the Sports Commission are among those on the list. Some received as much as P19,812 per month, plus the use of government cars, fuel and facilities.
Cortes also accused Fortuna of using government funds in defending his father’s Sandiganbayan case and added he is now contemplating an anti-graft case against his vice mayor.
The mayor said he will also order an investigation on the vice mayor’s brother Dexter, for his alleged use of a City-owned motorcycle for personal ends.
The mayor told reporters there is nothing wrong if someone volunteers to help his administration for free, which, he says, is what his relatives are doing.
He asked why Fortuna failed to mention the vice mayor’s own relatives who work for Cortes, including Briccio Boholst, Edmund Sanchez and Eutiquio Sanchez.
Two of the vice mayor’s aunts also serve in Cortes’ “council of elders,” whom Fortuna did not mention.
When sought for reaction, Fortuna said that some of the Ouano family members worked directly under the mayor and did not oversee any department, unlike what some of Cortes’ relatives are doing now.
Fortuna also said there were no findings during the ombudsman’s investigation that he used government funds in going to Manila and the Sandiganbayan. That investigation focused on whether the vice mayor filed for a leave of absence when he went to Manila, and the case remains pending.
The vice mayor said that both the prosecution and the Sandiganbayan were made aware that he is a government official who wants to defend his father.
The case, said Fortuna, was filed by the mayor’s brother Ariston Cortes III and company.
As to his brother Dexter’s use of a government motorcycle, Fortuna said it is the barangay tanods’ association that entrusted the bike to his brother, being a tanod coordinator.
The funds donated to tanod association were not enough to buy a motorcycle, and Dexter added personal funds just to buy the unit, Fortuna said.
If given an official resolution from the tanod association and a request for a formal turnover, his brother is willing to part with the unit anytime. (OCP/With KAB)
