Negros Occidental town execs face graft indictment

The Office of the Ombudsman has ordered the possible filing of graft charges against eight officials of Valladolid, Negros Occidental for pursuing the wrong mode of procurement for the repair of the town’s mechanical grain dryers in 2008.
In a Wednesday statement, the Ombudsman’s media bureau said the Ombudsman found probable cause to press criminal charges against former mayor and current Vice Mayor Romel Yogore.

Also facing possible charges for violation of Section 3(e) of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act were municipal agricultural officer Giovanni Robles and bids and awards committee members Joseph Alfonso Manayon, Ernesto Genobis, Daisy Galve, Cherryl Aguirre, Merlene Magbanua, and Ramonito Amazona.

Another respondent held criminal liable is Romeo Tanalgo of FranMar Agro-Industrial Sales.

Yogore and the other town officials were also held liable for the administrative offense of grave misconduct and were thus ordered dismissed and perpetually banned from government service. According to a local report by SunStar Bacolod, the dismissal order was already served on Yogore on Friday.

According to the Ombudsman, the town officials contracted the services of Franmar through a P698,000 repair contract without conducting public bidding. Instead, the officials led by Yogore availed of the alternative method of shopping.

Shopping is a procurement method for “readily available off-the-shelf goods or ordinary/regular office equipment to be procured directly from suppliers of known qualifications.”

But, for the Ombudsman, Franmar’s status as the purported exclusive distributor of Chung Chung mechanical dryers “does not merit the resort to shopping,” because the “condition of exclusivity of the source is applicable only in Direct Contracting.”

The town officials also failed to present any BAC resolution justifying the resort to shopping, and Investigation also showed that Franmar was only a subdealer of the brand of dryers. JE