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Friday, August 05, 2005
City social services chief fired for wasted food
By Karlon N. Rama
CEBU CITY -- Those sardines would have been a welcome meal on a poor man's table. With that said, the anti-graft office ordered Thursday the dismissal of a Cebu City Hall official it found guilty of gross neglect and grave misconduct for allowing sacks of canned sardines to rot inside a stockroom in Labangon and for trying to cover this up by burying the goods in July last year.
However, the anti-graft office, in its June 30, 2005 administrative decision, did not void Department of Social Welfare Services (DSWS) chief Nida Sistona's eligibility to hold another government post.
The Office of Ombudsman-Visayas, in the ruling signed by Deputy Ombudsman Primo Miro and released last July 19 yet, also did not forfeit the accrued benefits already earned by the one-time DSWS officer-in-charge.
The sardines were bought using government funds in 2003 and were intended for indigents and, during calamities, as relief goods.
They were worth almost P30,000 and stored at the Social Development Center (SDC), a facility operated by the DSWS.
"The failure of Sistona to apply appropriate measures in order that the purposes for which these goods were purchased by the City of Cebu be realized, and her failure to act immediately despite her knowledge of the goods' conditions and her act of burying these goods instead of informing the chairman of the committee on social services about the situation constitute neglect of duty," the anti-graft office ruled.
In her counter-affidavit, submitted during the formal administrative investigation, Sistona confirmed the rotting sardines and admitted to burying them but denied the allegation that she was negligent as the DSWS head of office.
She said the sardines became spoiled because of termites in the stockroom and there was no other way of disposing of them.
Sistona also said she was not the immediate and direct custodian of the goods. Instead, she blamed the DSWS administrative officer.
She pointed out that despite being the head of office, she cannot be expected to look into the stocks every day. She has to rely on other officials.
But the decision penned by Graft Investigator Mona Chica Cabanes-Gillamac said, "it is still beyond logic why the goods became rotten when we know for a fact that there are many indigents who flock to the office of the DSWS every day to ask for food."
Also, the presence of the termites and all other such conditions that caused the food to rot are proof that the storage area was not properly cleaned and ventilated.
"The goods will never reach deterioration had these been given to the needy instead of being stockpiled. Could it be that the DSWS under the leadership of (Sistona) was not that generous to the poor it was supposed to serve?" the ombudsman said.
The decision dismissing Sistona from service stemmed from a fact-finding investigation by the ombudsman's public assistance and corruption prevention unit, headed by Ombudsman Director Virginia Palanca-Santiago, last year.
The investigation began after the office received a letter from one Virgina Piccio revealing the burial of the items. It also narrated that this was not the first time rotten canned goods were found at the SDC and then surreptitiously buried.
The letter-writer said Sistona, last Nov. 21, 2003, also ordered the burial of some 200 cans of rotting sardines outside the SDC grounds.
Piccio is an employee of the DSWS and sent the letter to Cebu City Councilor Gerardo Carillo.
Director Santiago resolved to upgrade the fact-finding investigation into an administrative case after Piccio's allegations were confirmed.
The confirmation took the form of a letter-report, submitted by the Environmental Commercial and Industrial Sanitation Division of the Cebu City Health Department, revealing how investigators from the City Health Office were able to dig 247 cans of sardines buried in the spot stated in Piccio's original letter.
Inside the SDC, the report continued, the investigators also found 3,263 cans of assorted sardines, 64 cans of pork and beans, 42 cans of sausages and 50 cans of meat loaf in an "advanced state of deterioration."
Santiago called for a hearing and learned that Sistona had already been informed that some of the items in the SDC were beginning to rot, but the DSWS head didn't do anything about them. (Sun.Star Cebu)
(August 5, 2005 issue)
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