Abellanosa faces new rap for scholarship row

Cebu City Councilor Rodrigo Abellanosa faces a complaint of grave misconduct and grave abuse of authority filed by his rival for Cebu City’s south congressional seat.

In his complaint,   lawyer Aristotle Batuhan asked the Office of the President to investigate Abellanosa for allegedly using his position and influence to corner a substantial share of the city’s college scholarship program.

The councilor, who owns the Asian College of Technology (ACT), sits as a member of the city college scholarship committee due to his position as chairman of the city’s social services committee.

In a press conference at his office yesterday, Batuhan said he’s asking the Office of the President to place Abellanosa on preventive suspension  while an investigation is  made.

Abellanosa dismissed Batuhan’s accusations, saying he sounds “like a broken record.”

“It’s clear that he’s desperate for media publicity and is resorting to black propaganda against me,” he said.

A graft complaint citing a conflict of interest was earlier filed by a Cebu City taxpayer named Philip Bangiran against Abellanosa before the Ombudsman-Visayas last month.

Batuhan said he’s pushing for a preventive suspension 90 days ahead of the May 13 polls.

Batuhan said he filed a complaint against Abellanosa after he found out that the councilor authored an amendment to an ordinance that allowed him to sit in the city scholarship committee.

Batuhan said he will also ask the Bureau of Internal Revenue to verify if ACT is paying proper taxes.

He said he heard reports that Abellanosa put up the ACT Foundation to skip tax payments.

Abellanosa’s ACT had the biggest number of city scholars totaling 5,589 during the first semester of school year 2012 to 2013 while schools like the University of Cebu (UC) only has 1, 629 scholars.

In response, Abellanosa said his ACT helped Cebu City scholars and their parents by giving them a minimum counterpart scholarship grant of P10, 000 per semester to the Cebu City government’s grant of P10,000.

Abellanosa said what he’s doing is an example of the public-private-partnership thrust espoused by President Benigno Aquino III. “Where is the grave abuse there?,” he said.

He also said the ACT Foundation is paying taxes to the city and BIR because he didn’t apply for tax exemption.