FILE PHOTO: Mayor Vico Sotto says he ordered the Business Permit and Licensing Department to padlock gambling establishments in Pasig City. INQUIRER FILES
MANILA, Philippines — Pasig Mayor Vico Sotto has been charged with a second graft complaint in the Office of the Ombudsman, this time accusing him of not distributing a one-time cash allowance of P1,500 each to City Hall employees for the city’s 452nd founding anniversary last month.
Also named as respondents in the complaint filed on July 30 were Elvira Flores, head of the city’s human resource development office; Jeronimo Manzanero, city administrator; and Josephine Lati-Bagaoisan, head of the bids and awards committee.
READ: Pasig mayor faces first graft case since 2019
The complainant, a Pasig resident identified as Michelle Prudencio, claimed that instead of distributing the cash allowance, Sotto gave away “Araw ng Pasig” T-shirts on June 28 and made the employees sign acknowledgement receipts that they had received the money.
She also questioned whether the purchase of the shirts went through the legal bidding process.
Sotto has yet to respond to the Inquirer’s request for comment. But he attributed the first graft complaint filed against him, for supposedly wiping out a company’s multi-million tax debt, to dirty political tactics.