3 Iligan City Hall execs face graft raps

ILIGAN CITY—The Ombudsman Mindanao has approved the filing of graft charges against three City Hall officials for allegedly tampering with daily time records of employees in a bid to bloat salary payments.

In a 48-page resolution, Milagros de Jesus-Macaraig, graft investigation and prosecution officer, said earlier this month that there was probable cause to charge acting city human resource officer Ophelia Aspera Cayaco; human resource management officer Danilo Genabio Iglupas, and human resource office administrative officer Ilpa Lasala Acapulco, of estafa through falsification of public documents and malversation of public funds.

The Ombudsman resolution, a copy of which was obtained by the Inquirer on Thursday, was based on the complaint filed by “concerned citizens,” including lawyer Vermin Quimco and Catholic priests Fr. Nazer Zaragoza and Fr. Albert Mendez.

The complainants charged that they have gathered evidence, including the testimony of a former City Hall employee, about the officials’ act of bloating salary expenditures by tampering with the employees’ claim for overtime pay.

“The complaint is supported with the affidavit of Rolando Mariquit, the principal witness of the complainants, who was then the human resource management officer I of the local government of Iligan,” the Ombudsman resolution read.

The Ombudsman said Mariquit had testified to “having personal knowledge of the illegal and irregular acts committed by the respondents in having conspired and confederated in the falsification of the entries in his and his colleagues’ daily time records (DTRs) for the month of December 2007.”

“The purpose was to support a bloated claim for overtime services and the witness averred that respondents made insertions and alterations in his DTR for December 2007 as well as the DTRs of the six employees of the City Human Resource Management Office by making it appear that they have rendered excessive overtime service when in truth not,” the Ombudsman added.

In the documents, the city government spent P150,000 for payment of the supposed overtime services but none of the employees received the full amount shown in their pay slips.

Cayaco and Acapulco were not available to comment on the Ombudsman resolution but Iglupas denied having a hand in the supposed anomaly. Tito N. Fiel, Inquirer Mindanao