5 probed in MWSS retirement fraud

MANILA, Philippines—The head of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) has asked the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to investigate several people linked to an attempt to defraud the water agency of P454 million in separation payments—including the staff and presiding judge of a Quezon City trial court.

In a letter to the NBI, a copy of which was obtained by the

Inquirer, MWSS administrator Geraldo Esquivel asked the NBI to subpoena at least five employees assigned to the MWSS Claims Section as well as the judge, sheriff and staff of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court (QC-RTC) Branch 87 in connection with the tenfold “padding” of a list of retirees that were entitled to additional separation benefits.

In his letter, Esquivel did not list the names of the MWSS employees who were suspected of having acted as “fixers.” He also did not name the presiding judge and staffers of the court that approved the allegedly padded list, but the sheriff who served the order for payment was identified as Marcelino E. Cabigao.

Esquivel related that 550 MWSS employees who were qualified to retire in 1997 filed a petition in 2004 regarding their entitlements to receive additional separation benefits in line with a Supreme Court ruling on the matter. This was granted by the court. However, by the time the order to pay was served by the sheriff, 5,512 names were on the list of retiree-beneficiaries.

He said that on May 27, the Land Bank of the Philippines provided the MWSS with the “notice of garnishment” dated May 23 which had been served by Cabigao, sheriff of the QC-RTC Branch 87, covering deposits of the MWSS in the amount of P453,699,188.

Esquivel said the court sheriff “may knowingly or unwittingly be a part of the conspiracy to bloat the list and defraud the government of millions of pesos.”

He argued that if the sheriff had submitted an enforcement report to officers of the court, “they would have seen the tenfold padding of the list.”

The MWSS administrator told the NBI that Gabriel Advincula, counsel of the retirees, had submitted the longer list of beneficiaries to the Land Bank of the Philippines.

Esquivel had earlier written Justice Secretary Leila de Lima requesting an investigation into this  alleged conspiracy “to defraud the MWSS of hundreds of millions of pesos in false and unjustified claims for deferential severance pay.”