Caloocan mayoral race turns to ‘trash talk’

reelectionist Caloocan Mayor Oscar Malapitan

With less than two weeks to go before the May 9 elections, the camp of reelectionist Caloocan Mayor Oscar Malapitan brought to surface a 2015 government audit on the allegedly overpriced trash cans purchased during the term of his rival, former mayor  and incumbent Rep. Recom Echiverri.

It was Malapitan’s apparent retaliation after being accused recently in the Office of the Ombudsman of purchasing overpriced birthday packs of grocery items handed out to senior citizens, an allegation he denied and suspected to be the handiwork of the Echiverri camp.

In a statement Thursday, the city’s public information office (PIO) cited a 2015 Commission on Audit (COA) report that branded as “illegal” the P89-million disbursement made by Echiverri for various supplies, including the purchase of trash cans “worth P29,000 each.”

PIO chief Nolan Sison said COA Director Sabiniano Cabatuan, in an April 24, 2015, decion, “ordered Echiverri and other involved officials to return the P81.9 million which came from the funds of the local government.”

In an interview, Sison said a Caloocan “taxpayer” he identified as Carolina Cruz used the COA findings as basis for a November 2015 complaint she filed against Echiverri in the Office of the Ombudsman for malversation of public funds, falsification of public documents and grave misconduct.

Reached for comment, Echiverri’s chief of staff, lawyer Flor Esteban, said “we have already answered this in the Office of the Ombudsman.”

“But seriously, is this news? It was filed in 2015. Maybe the real news is about the overpriced birthday packs,” Esteban said. “(This is) dirty politics at work.”

“Can we just stress that 66 cases were filed in the Ombudsman immediately after Mayor Recom filed his certificate of candidacy in October 2015?”

Rep. Recom Echiverri