A dismissed employee of the Negros Occidental provincial government decried what he claimed was an injustice that happened to him.
"I strongly decry my dismissal from service for grave charges without any evidentiary support," Herminigildo Basilio, Agriculturist I, said in a statement Monday, August 21, over his dismissal from public service due to the alleged missing 789 bags of fertilizers.
"I thoroughly explained my side through my reply to the show cause order supported with documentary evidence, as well as my answer to the formal charge, which was made under oath, providing the names of persons who should have been included in the investigation, if such was made to uncover the truth," Basilio stated in his statement.
He explained that he has already provided proof that he is no longer in charge of the Rice Processing Center in Brgy. Tabunan, Bago City, for more than one year at the time the 789 bags of fertilizer allegedly went missing.
"I also do not have the key to the RPC warehouse," he said, adding that he only followed the instructions of his superiors.
The fertilizers were completely unloaded at the
warehouse and were acknowledged by the watchman/guard on duty and recorded in their logbook, he further explained.
"For me to be made the scapegoat and dismissed after more than a decade of loyal service to the provincial government due to 789 bags of fertilizer that allegedly went missing on October
18, 2022, is simply devastating for me and my family and shows that injustice prevails in the halls of the Provincial Capitol,” Basilio added.
"I am now left with no recourse but to appeal my dismissal before an impartial authority," Basilio further said.
Basilio was dismissed from the service for grave misconduct, serious dishonesty, and malversation of public property, effective immediately, for the missing 789 sacks of fertilizer from the provincial government’s RPC warehouse in Bago City.
The said fertilizers, worth P2,267,000, came from the Department of Agriculture and were discovered missing on October 20, 2022, when the municipality of Cauayan was about to get its allocation.*