Mindoro mayor ordered suspended for oppression

CITY OF CALAPAN—The Office of the Ombudsman suspended for six months Mayor Jackson Dy of Roxas town in Oriental Mindoro province after finding him liable for oppression.

On Dec. 23, Roxas Vice Mayor Violeta Dimapilis, a political opponent of Dy and the mayoral candidate of the Liberal Party, was installed as the town’s acting mayor.

Ma. Victoria del Rosario, Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) provincial coordinator, affirmed that the suspension order was served at the mayor’s office on Dec. 24 and that Dimapilis took her oath as mayor on the same day.

She said the DILG was implementing the Ombudsman order, dated Nov. 25, that found Dy guilty of oppression and ordered him suspended without pay for six months and one day.

The suspension was based on a complaint lodged in October 2013 by Aurora Sinel, the town’s budget officer since May 1996, for conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service, grave misconduct and oppression.

Sinel claimed that Dy denied her a calamity loan, refused to release her collective bargaining incentives, mobile phone load allowance, representation and travel allowances, and withheld her salaries.

She said the mayor began withholding her benefits and wages after she earned the mayor’s ire for failing to implement Dy’s order to create the position of human resource management officer and for disallowing a travel of an employee for fund lack.

Dy, who is serving his third and last term, has fielded his daughter Samantha Jade for mayoral post in the 2016 elections against Dimapilis. Dy is running as the vice mayor of his daughter. The Inquirer tried but failed to reach Dy.