Sunday, August 15, 2004 Ombud suspends Lagahit; recommends raps vs city execs By Adrian Sedillo
THE Ombudsman suspended for one month without pay acting City Legal Officer Neil Rey Lagahit for administrative liability and recommended the filing of criminal charges against him and Vice Mayor William Ablong for defying a Court of Appeals order prohibiting City Hall from closing the Zamora lotto outlet last year.
In her 11-page resolution dated July 9, 2004 Mona Chica C. Gillamac, Graft Investigation and Prosecution Officer I, however exonerated Mayor Agustin Perdices from administrative and criminal liabilities.
Gillamac said the complaining lotto operator Teresita Zamora failed to prove Perdices' involvement in issuing the June 2003 closure order since he was on leave at that time.
"I have been vindicated!" Zamora told Sun.Star Dumaguete Friday after receiving a copy of the Ombudsman resolution.
But Lagahit laughed off the implications of the Ombudsman decision.
"Like a basketball game, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose," he said.
The acting city legal officer said he was glad though the decision spared Perdices from both the administrative and criminal complaints Zamora filed before the Ombudsman.
"We respect the Ombudsman's decision," Ablong said.
He said he presumed the Ombudsman's recommendation would be the filing of "appropriate charges" before the Sandiganbayan.
"Anyway, we have elevated the case for contempt at the Supreme Court level," the vice mayor said.
Gillamac said Lagahit was liable criminally and administratively because despite his knowledge of the CA decision prohibiting the city government from closing Zamora's lotto outlet, he defied it.
"Respondents could never justify by any argument the second closure of her (Zamora's) outlet, which was in defiance of the order of the Court of Appeals," the Ombudsman said.
The graft investigator said when a case is pending before it, only the CA can order the closure of the outlet.
Lagahit, she said, as an appointive official is not beyond the Ombudsman's administrative disciplinary authority.
On the case of Ablong, Gillamac invoked the Aguinaldo doctrine, which prevents reelected officials from being penalized administratively for a prior infraction on the ground that his reelection manifested the people's condonation of the previous misdemeanor.
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