Employee loses job due to dishonesty

BACOLOD City—The Office of the Ombudsman in the Visayas has dismissed an employee of the Negros Occidental Provincial Treasurer’s Office for absconding close to P300,000 in public funds.

The Ombudsman found Revenue Collection Clerk 1 Eden Rosario Dasas administratively guilty of serious dishonesty, and dismissed her from the service with forfeiture of benefits and perpetual disqualification to hold public office.

The Ombudsman directed Negros Occidental Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. to enforce the decision dismissing Dasas.

But Dasas has disappeared since 2010 and was rumored to have left the country, said Provincial Treasurer Nilda Generoso.

Dasas was one of the five employees under the Provincial Treasurer’s Office who had incurred cash shortages based on the audit conducted by the Commission on Audit (CoA) on Oct. 4, 2007. CoA then filed a complaint before the Ombudsman-Visayas.

The four others are revenue collection clerk Leovigilda Petareal, clerk Danilo Juplo, Estrelita Chica and Shigried Sanoy.

Petareal and Juplo had been dismissed from the service for failing to account for P317,347 and P100,000 respectively. Juplo has appealed the Ombudsman decision.

Chica had settled her cash shortage of P60,860. Sanoy, who could not account for P135,885, was still under investigation.

In the case of Dasas, her cash shortage reached P259,238.

In a 13-page decision, the Ombudsman said Dasas apologized for her lapses in a letter dated April 12, 2007.

“The records speak for themselves and I cannot offer any plausible excuse that could at least alleviate the enormity of what I have done. It was done out of extreme necessity and under very compelling circumstances,” she said.

Dasas said she started incurring shortages in December 2005 when she took the money to pay an overdue loan. Her debts, however, piled up when her father died in a hospital on Dec. 16, 2006.

On top of her debts, Dasas said she had to take care of the needs of her three children and ailing mother. Before she knew it, she could not manage her finances anymore, she said.

As a result “I was tempted and forced to make use of my collections to pay off my obligations,” she said.

The Office of the Ombudsman’s decision said Dasas abused her position and her acts of dishonesty made her unfit to remain in government service.