Robredo goes after absentee mayors

Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Mayors and other local government officials who frequently absent themselves from their official duties should be sanctioned, according to Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo.

Robredo said they have been continuously receiving reports of the habitual absenteeism and negligence of local chief executives.

“Some local government officials are either frequently absent or holding office elsewhere other than their official places of assignment,” he said.

The law considers a governor or mayor “habitually absent” if he stays at least 10 cumulative working days in a month out of his official area of jurisdiction.

Robredo reminded local officials against “practicing their profession or engaging in any occupation other than the exercise of their functions as local chief executives” based on Section 90 of the Local Government Code.

He directed provincial governors to establish a monitoring mechanism on the presence of local chief executives in their official stations and report those who are habitually absent.

“In the exercise of your general supervisory power over component cities and municipalities, you may admonish habitually absent local chief executives or as may be warranted, cause the filing of appropriate charges against them,” Robredo told governors.

A department memo he issued last year stated that a local government official could be suspended or removed from office for “dishonesty, oppression, misconduct in office, gross negligence or dereliction of duty, or unauthorized absence for 15 consecutive working days.”