2 charged for faking Ombudsman subpoenas

MANILA, Philippines—Acting Ombudsman Orlando Casimiro has ordered the filing of criminal and administrative charges against two Manila City Hall employees who allegedly manufactured fake subpoenas and used a post office box registered under a name similar to his.

The city hall employees, identified as Edwin Macadangdang and Antonio Gapasin, were earlier arrested during an entrapment operation conducted by the police and the Ombudsman’s Field Investigation Office.

The Office of the Ombudsman discovered the activities of the two men after one of the government officials who received  fake subpoenas brought the required documents to the Ombudsman office instead of to the fake P.O. Box, according to Director Beda Epres of the Ombudsman Intelligence Bureau.

The agency said Macadangdang and Gapasin’s modus operandi was to issue fake subpoenas to government agencies where they require the submission of documents to a specified P.O. Box. The P.O. Box they used was under the name of one Orlando C. Casimiro.

The Ombudsman’s Intelligence Bureau and the Philippine National Police conducted surveillance operations on the two Manila city hall employees from July 14 to 18 to verify their activities.

Operatives caught Gapasin at the Quezon City Post Office, while they arrested Macadangdang at the city engineer’s office at the Manila City Hall.

The Office of the Ombudsman did not say why Macadangdang and Gapasin were asking for documents from the government agencies.

Criminal charges of usurpation of authority and falsification, and an administrative case for grave misconduct, would be filed against the two city hall employees. They have been detained at the police headquarters in Camp Crame.