Suspended City Engineers finds error over Ombudsman Order; Cries Harassment Against Complainant Over Faulty Construction Work

The three Cebu City engineers that the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas wants to be suspended said if the anti-graft body will insist to implement its order it would imply that it condones the faulty construction works of the contractor-complainant.

Mayor Michael Rama still has not implemented the Ombudsman’s order to place Cebu City Assistant Engineer June Nadine Sison, Engineers Juanito Pua Jr. and Joel Pasatiempo under preventive suspension for six months.

The three engineers strongly denied the accusations of complainant Robert Montenegro that the three of them demanded from him a brand new computer and a “high-tech” camera for their personal use, but it was a market official who asked for it because the equipment are part of the requirements.

Sison and the two other engineers are facing charges before the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas for allegedly violating the government’s anti-graft and corrupt practices act, grave abuse of authority and gross misconduct unbecoming of government employees.

Deputy Ombudsman for the Visayas Pelagio Apostol has concurred with the recommendation of the anti-graft investigators to preventively suspend the three city engineers allegedly because the evidence of guilt against them is strong.

The mayor had asked the city lawyers to give their legal opinions after the three engineers had filed a motion for reconsideration of the Ombudsman’s preventive suspension order.

While Montenegro filed his complaint at the Ombudsman last September, the three engineers only received their summons for them to answer the charges last February 19, and they were surprised because among the documents was the six-month preventive suspension order dated January 9.

The respondents claimed that the anti-graft investigators had made grave and reversible errors on its findings that the evidence of guilt against them is strong without first examining the testimonial and documentary evidence of the parties concerned.

They strongly believed that if they were allowed by the Ombudsman’s graft investigators to present their side they could have established all facts to refute all the bare allegations of the complainant.

The three engineers alleged that Montenegro just harassed them by filing the fabricated charges hoping that they will change their decision not to release the P150,000 that represents the 10 percent retention of his project contract in Barangay Adlaon because it was not done well.

Several photographs of the alleged defects of Montenegro’s project in Barangay Adlaon had been furnished to the Ombudsman and the three engineers even asked the anti-graft investigators to conduct ocular inspection to the project which they said is the real root of the case.

“What the respondents did was only to uphold the law and to protect the city on poorly made projects. By ordering the preventive suspension of the respondents, this honorable office is impliedly condoning the faulty construction works of the complainant,” the three engineers said. About the computer and the camera that Montenegro claimed that the
three engineers allegedly demanded from him, the respondents said it was really market supervisor Lilianita Gucela who did it because these were part of the components of the roof replacement project of T. Padilla market done by the complainant. The Engineers added that this component were recorded in the minutes during the meeting held last February 20, 2012

“It is contrary to norms and ordinary human conduct to commit graft in the presence of other individuals and during official meeting,” they said.