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THE Office of the Ombudsman on Thursday ordered a “discreet
investigation” of the criminal and administrative charges filed
against Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) President and
General Manager Winston Garcia.
However, the Ombudsman ordered complainant lawyer
Alberto Velasco to substantiate his allegations that Garcia remitted
P1 billion in unassigned GSIS surplus funds to the Office of the
President and not to the National Treasury.
According to Assistant Ombudsman Mark Jalandoni,
their office is now making a thorough assessment of the charges
lodged against Garcia and the other officials, if there is enough
evidence to proceed with the case.
”The Office of the Ombudsman is now in the
process of evaluating the complaint on the basis of the affidavits
and the evidence submitted,” Jalandoni said.
Jalandoni said that as a matter of procedure,
the result of the evaluation would serve as a basis if a formal
preliminary investigation shall proceed or not.
Ombudsman Maria Merceditas Navarro-Gutierrez
is set to issue an order on Velasco asking him to explain why he
should not be sanctioned with regards to the allegations in his
pleading that Gutierrez must inhibit herself because “it has also
been made known to us that it was she, then Presidential Legal
Counsel Gutierrez, who received and favorably endorsed the said
amount of P1 billion from GSIS on behalf of the Office of the
President.”
In an interview of The Manila Times, Velasco
said that his basis for pressing charges against Garcia are the
press releases and newspaper reports during the time the P1 billion
was remitted by GSIS toMalacañang.
-- Jomar Canlas
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