Case 1. The Office of the Ombudsman has suspended Mandaue Mayor Jonas Cortes for designating an allegedly unqualified employee as officer-in-charge of the city’s Social Welfare Services Office. The act constituted gross misconduct, according to the decision.
While the Ombudsman took pains to explain, with the help of a Supreme Court decision, what constitutes gross misconduct, they, however, failed to discuss why and how Cortes’s act falls within the ambit of that definition. All that the decision said was that the act of designating an officer-in-charge was “highly irregular and violated pertinent civil service rules and regulations and other applicable laws.”
I have a few questions.
What was in the mayor’s misconduct, if misconduct was indeed committed, that elevated it to serious instead of simple misconduct? Was there a clear intent to violate the law? Corruption? Flagrant disregard of established rule?
Since the issue is tied to the validity of a designation, wouldn’t a determination by the Civil Service Commission have helped in deciding the existence of misconduct as well as its category?
Case 2. The Cebu City government has a project called the City Hospitalization Assistance and Medicines Program (Champ) that is supposed to help indigent city residents gain admission to a private hospital even if they cannot make a downpayment. The Letter of Authority that the city government issues is supposed to take the place of the downpayment and guarantee the settlement of hospital bills up to the amount of P30,000 per patient.
Questions: Is it true that the five or so private hospitals participating in Champ have stopped honoring the Letter of Authority because of the city’s failure to pay its indebtedness? And is it true that the city’s debt to the hospitals has ballooned to almost half a billion pesos? Why, oh why?
Case 3. Thanks to my friends, the orthopedic surgeon Dr. Harem Deiparine, and the physiotherapist Dave Cerojano, I was finally able to regain use of my left leg, enabling me to walk at the Cebu City Sports Center (CCSC) last Tuesday.
It was, nevertheless, a gut-wrenching experience. The supposed-to-be fully rehabilitated (at a cost of P52 million), rubberized track was in worse condition than it was before Michael Rama closed it down for repairs. It does not take genius to see that the work is clearly sub-standard.
Questions: What has the City done to hold the contractor or whoever is responsible for the oval’s pitiful state accountable? How much has the city paid out of the P52 million budget?
A note to the reader. Go to the CCSC and take one lap around the oval. Then ask yourself this question: how much longer will it take for the entire rubberized matting to peel off?