Abellanosa Waives Right to Answer-Batuhan

Team Rama south district congressional candidate Aristotle “Totol” Batuhan is asking the Office of the President to dismiss Cebu City Councilor Rodrigo “Bebot” Abellanosa from the service.

Batuhan said that Abellanosa still failed to submit his counter-affidavit 46 days after he filed the complaint before the Office of the President and this can be interpreted as waiving of his right to answer the charges.

Batuhan asked President Benigno Simeon Aquino III to let his staff immediately resolve the complaint for alleged conflict interest that he filed against Abellanosa even without the latter’s side.

In his five-page motion, Batuhan prayed for Malacañang officials to resolve quickly the case solely on his urgent petition dated 10 January 2013 because Abellanosa did not answer the complaint.

Batuhan, who used to work in Malacañang, said he did not receive a copy of Abellanosa’s counter-affidavit. The procedure is that both the respondent and the petitioner should furnish the other party of any official document that they filed in relation to the case.

The Team Rama congressional aspirant had filed a complaint for grave misconduct, grave abuse of authority, patent dishonesty and dereliction of duty against Abellanosa after he allowed his own school, Asian College of Technology (ACT), as among the beneficiaries of the Cebu City’s scholarship program.

He said ACT has 5,589 city scholars while other schools like the University of Cebu (UC) only has 1,625; Cebu Technological University has 1,384; Cebu Normal University has 471 and University of the Philippines (UP) has 99 city scholars.

Abellanosa is part of the Cebu City scholarship committee. Batuhan claimed that the alleged conflict of interest stemmed from the fact that Abellanosa is the chairman of the board and president of ACT.

Reacting to Batuhan’s motion, Abellanosa said “Totol is just using all of you in the media in his smear campaign against me. I have been informed that he has been paying media outlets for interviews and publicity.”

Batuhan appealed to Malacañang officials that Abellanosa be dismissed from the service for conflict of interest and to file criminal charges against him in order to serve a lesson to other government officials.

Batuhan and Abellanosa are both running for congressman for the city’s south district on May 13 national and local elections.