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By Jomar
Canlas, Reporter
THE Court of
Appeals has affirmed the authority of the Office of the Ombudsman to
suspend Mayor Wenceslao Trinidad of Pasay City, Vice-Mayor Antonino
Calixto and nine councilors.
The court’s
11th Division, in a decision written by Associate Justice Jose
Mendoza, ruled that Ombudsman Merceditas Navarro-Gutierrez did not
abuse her discretion in ordering the preventive suspension of
Trinidad and the other officials for entering into an allegedly
anomalous garbage contract.
In a 25-page
ruling, the court said a preventive suspension is not a penalty but
a remedy to prevent the respondent from tampering with the evidence
and using his office to protect his interests.
It also
refuted Trinidad’s claim that he was denied due process because a
preliminary hearing “is not necessary before the disciplining
authority issues the order of preventive suspension. [It] is merely
a step in an administrative investigation and is not in any way the
final determination of the guilt of the official concerned.”
The court said
the findings of the Ombudsman that based on the contracts and board
resolutions entered into by the Pasay officials the evidence of
guilt.
The appellate
court, however, reduced the six-month suspension of Trinidad to five
months and that of Calixto and the councilors to four months.
The case
stemmed from a complaint filed on December 14, 2005, by Juanito
Delmendo against Trinidad and the other officials for entering into
four sets of multimillion garbage collection and disposal contracts
with five private contractors for a span of almost two years from
February 2004 to December 2005 without the benefit of any
competitive public bidding, the last one without any Sanggunian
authorization.
Delmendo filed
the charges of violation of the Antigraft and Corrupt Practices Act
(Republic Act 3019) and Government Procurement Reform Act (R.A.
9184).
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