Maguindanao vice gov suspended for false SALN, faces perjury raps

Office of the Ombudsman. NOY MORCOSO/INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO

Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales has suspended Maguindanao Vice Governor Lester Sinsuat for six months after he was found guilty of not declaring a truthful statement of assets and liabilities networth (SALN).

In a statement, Morales said she found Sinsuat guilty of the administrative offense of simple negligence for his failure to accurately declare properties in his SALN.

The Ombudsman also found probable cause to charge Sinsuat before the Sandiganbayan with four counts of perjury punishable under Article 183 of the Revised Penal Code.

The Ombudsman said the records would show Sinsuat failed to declare five agricultural lands, two commercial properties and a residential property in his 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2012 SALNs.

For his part, Sinsuat claimed “he was not directly involved in processing the registration of properties under his name as he merely requests his staff to do so” and that “it is a common practice and culture in his province to rely on word of honor in transactions involving real properties.”

But the Ombudsman said the records clearly showed that Sinsulat “made a willful and deliberate assertion of a falsehood by materially omitting in his SALN for 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2012, the real properties he acquired in those years.”

“[Sinsuat] failed to pay attention to the details of his SALN, resulting in the inaccuracy of crucial information,” the Ombudsman added.

The Ombudsman reminded public officials that in the discharge of their duties, “they must use prudence, caution, and attention which careful persons use in the management of their affairs.”

Earlier, the Ombudsman also suspended the following members of a political clan in Sulu over SALN violations—Sulu Governor Abdusakur Tan II, his father Vice Governor Abdusakur Tan, Maimbung Mayor Samier Tan, and former Lugus Mayor Al-Zhudurie Asmadun, former mayor of Maimbung town.

They were suspended for offenses involving the truthful filing of SALN, mandated under Section 8 of the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees or Republic Act 6713.

READ: Members of top Sulu political clan suspended from office

Incumbent officials Vice Governor Tan and Mayor Tan were suspended for six months. Meanwhile, former Mayor Asmadun was penalized with a fine equivalent to his salary for six months.

Governor Tan was suspended for one month for simple neglect in failing to execute his 2013 and 2014 SALN under oath.

Under Section 8 of the Code of Conduct, all public officials and employees are required to annually file under oath their SALN and a disclosure of business interests and financial connections and those of their spouses and unmarried children under 18 years of age living in their households.

Public officials are required to file a truthful SALN on or before April 30 every year. RAM/rga