THE Office of the President has started the preliminary hearing over the anomalous P79 million worth of checks allegedly released by banks in Mayor Oscar Moreno's name.
A pre-hearing conference was conducted Tuesday, July 2, at the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) where complainant William Guialani and Moreno's lawyer, Dale Mordeno were present.
Mordeno said the DILG was deputized by the Office of the President to receive evidence from both parties.
Mordeno, however, said they are confident that the case will be dismissed, citing a Commission on Audit (COA) 2018 report that these transactions were found to be regular transactions.
"The COA audit said these transactions have no supporting documents, no vouchers, no proper entries in the book of accounts, but these were already addressed and complied with," he said.
He added that the COA subsequently issued another report in 2018 that the audit observations in 2016 are already complied.
"Complied na mao nga dili nami gakabalaka ani nga issue kay complied naman. Siya (Guialani) ra ang gabuot-buot ana. Pero kay gikao man lagi so tubagon nalang namo, pero kumpyansa kaayo mi nga ma-dismiss ni," he said.
The pre-hearing conference is set Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at DILG regional office.
It can be recalled that in 2017, Guialani showed 8 copies of the 8 checks issued by various banks here, amounting to P79 million, with Mayor Moreno as the payee.
Guialani pushed that Moreno be administratively and criminally liable for Gross Malversation/Qualified Theft, and Grave Misconduct, for the illegal disbursement of the P79 million.
In an interview Tuesday, Guialani said he is interested where Moreno spent the P79 million.
But added that although he has a chance to win the case, he said is getting disappointed about how Moreno's cases are getting dismissed.
"Sa akong pagtan-aw, dako akong chance modaog pero sa tinuod lang, dili naman unta ko moanhi kay discouraged nako sa pagka-dismiss sa iyang mga kaso. Pero wala man koy mahimo, kung dili ko moanhi ma-contempt of court man ko," he added.