Ombudsman orders filing of falsification case vs S. Leyte governor

The Office of the Ombudsman (File photo by NINO JESUS ORBETA / Philippine Daily Inquirer)

For failing to declare the year he graduated as a civil engineer, Southern Leyte Governor Damian Mercado was indicted for falsification of public documents by the Office of the Ombudsman.

In a statement on Friday, the Ombudsman found probable cause to charge Mercado with falsification of public documents under the Revised Penal Code.

Damian Mercado is the brother of Southern Leyte congressman Roger Mercado.

Ombudsman records showed that Mercado failed to submit a true, correct and complete Personal Data Sheet (PDS) and the Elective Local Official’s Profile Directory (Data Capture Form).

The Ombudsman said Mercado wrote he was a civil engineer and claimed he attended elementary school at the Maasin Central School from 1964 to 1971.

However, in his 2010 PDS, Mercado failed to indicate the years he graduated from elementary and college.

“Mercado’s failure to fill up the spaces for the year when he graduated (if graduated) constitutes concealment of information in violation of his undertaking in his PDS to state the true, correct and complete statement pursuant to the provisions of pertinent laws, rules and regulations,” the Ombudsman said in its resolution.

Mercado in his defense said he could have only been mistaken for an engineer because he had once worked as a contractor.

The Ombudsman said Mercado’s failure to disclose the years he completed his elementary and college degree showed his intent to conceal information.

“On the years when he completed his elementary grades and B.S. Civil Engineering, his evasive claim that he could have been mistaken for a civil engineer because he was a contractor, and his incomplete entries in the Elective Local Official’s Profile Directory and PDS on those matters all engender the well-founded belief that the governor withheld and concealed the truth and falsified his entries,” the Ombudsman said.

As to Mercado’s claim that the complaint should be dismissed due to unreasonable delay by the Ombudsman, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales said “the fact-finding case or case build-up phase of the prosecutorial process of this Office is not part of preliminary investigation.”

Under Article 171 (4) of the Revised Penal Code, falsification is committed by a public officer who makes an untruthful statement in a narration of facts in a document by taking advantage of his official position. KS/rga