As election day draws near, skeletons from politicians’ closets and “ghosts” (real or imagined) start turning up.
On Sun, Mar 6, Atty. Vladimir Cabigao called on the Office of the Ombudsman to initiate cases based on the Commission on Audit’s (COA) findings in 2012 that up to 623 suspected ‘ghost’ employees were supposedly employed in the office of Manila Vice Mayor Isko Moreno (real name: Francisco Domagoso).
“Cabigao pointed out that if COA’s findings were true, the Manila City Hall has been losing as much as PHP84 million a year in salaries alone to the ‘ghost’ consultants and researchers allegedly employed by Domagoso who is running for a Senate seat,” reports Jerome Aning in Philippine Daily Inquirer.
The report noted: “Last Dec. 14, Cabigao filed a motion asking Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales to resolve the administrative complaints of dishonesty, misconduct in office and fraud against the public treasury that he filed against Domagoso in September 2012.”
Cabigao was quoted as saying, “The Ombudsman should wrap up its investigation soon, file the case, and preventively suspend those accountable, especially with reports coming out in 2013 that Manila was virtually bankrupt, which is also the subject of a separate COA probe. We should stop this plunder of the city’s funds once and for all.”
He added, “If this administrative complaint would be simply brushed aside, the campaign on ‘daang matuwid’ (straight path) of the government would be a meaningless rhetoric and would betray public accountability as stated in the Constitution.”
Asked to comment on Cabigao’s allegations, the vice mayor stated, “The cases filed by Cabigao are rehashed and politically motivated. The [original] case was dismissed by the Ombudsman three years ago and I have the documents to prove it.”
Cabigao, though, had a rebuttal for Moreno’s statement, saying that he had “checked with the Ombudsman and verified that the case he filed was still under investigation.”
“I have not yet received any notice [of dismissal], so I’m surprised that he’s claiming that it has been dismissed,” Cabigao said.
