{"id":122908,"date":"2017-10-11T03:05:20","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T07:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=122908"},"modified":"2017-10-11T03:05:20","modified_gmt":"2017-10-11T07:05:20","slug":"ex-cebu-town-mayor-penalized-for-yolanda-fund-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/10\/11\/ex-cebu-town-mayor-penalized-for-yolanda-fund-mess\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Cebu town mayor penalized for Yolanda fund mess"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Corro's<\/a>
Corro’s suspension stemmed from the complaint filed by Renato Binatiro of Barangay Tapilon, Daanbantayan, a qualified beneficiary of the ESA program. (Photo<\/a>: DILG Daanbantayan, Cebu\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CEBU CITY<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 The Office of the Ombudsman ordered on Monday the two-month suspension of former Daanbantayan, Cebu Mayor Augusto Corro for simple negligence over the handling of the Emergency Shelter Assistance (ESA) funds for the victims of Typhoon Yolanda.<\/p>\n

But since Corro is no longer in office, the penalty will be converted to a fine equivalent to his two months salary.<\/p>\n

The Ombudsman also ordered the suspension of Social Welfare Officer III Heide Aplece of the Municipal Social Welfare Development Office.<\/p>\n

Corro’s suspension stemmed from the complaint filed by Renato Binatiro of Barangay Tapilon, Daanbantayan, a qualified beneficiary of the ESA program.<\/p>\n

The ESA is a financial assistance program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for disaster-affected families.<\/p>\n

Qualified beneficiaries, whose houses were completely, destroyed by the typhoon were entitled to receive PHP30,000, while residents with partially-destroyed homes will get PHP10,000.<\/p>\n

Local government units in the typhoon-affected areas were tapped to implement the program. The local officials were to come up with a list of families within their respective jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

In October 2014, Corro submitted to DSWD a list of 16,613 beneficiaries. In January 2015, DSWD released Memorandum Circular No. 24 disqualifying beneficiaries living in unsafe or no-build zones.<\/p>\n

Benatiro was declared ineligible to receive the financial assistance following the DSWD memo. However, on March 25, 2015, the Mines and Geosciences Board issued a letter stating that \u201cBarangay Tapilon is generally not within a danger\/unsafe zone for rain-induced landslide and flooding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corro wrote the Department of Environment and Natural Resources on July 30, 2015, requesting \u201ctechnical assistance to establish the unsafe zones as the local government is having difficulty in establishing the so-called unsafe or no-build zones due to the absence of technical personnel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corro, in his counter-affidavit filed on November 20, 2015, informed the Ombudsman that Daanbantayan has \u201csuspended the ESA distribution in the areas near the shorelines pending the technical determination of unsafe zones by the proper government authorities.<\/p>\n

The municipality of Daanbantayan received a total of PHP425.87\u00a0million worth of\u00a0ESA funds.<\/p>\n

The Ombudsman’s decision stated that \u201c[respondent] disqualified complainant on the ground that his house was located within the unsafe zone but four months later they claimed that the municipality has not yet determined its danger\/unsafe zone. If it is true that the municipality merely withheld the ESA of those residing near the shorelines pending proper identification of its danger\/unsafe zones, the remarks appearing next to complainant\u2019s name on the list, as well as that of the others, should have been \u2018for verification\u2019 and not a categorical and unqualified \u2018unsafe zone\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt cannot be gainsaid that respondent flatly failed to observe a mandatory requirement under Memorandum Circular No. 24 when they hastily labelled complainant and several others as residing within the danger\/unsafe zones, without proper reference to the municipality\u2019s Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP) and multi-hazard maps,\u201d according to the Ombudsman.<\/p>\n

The Ombudsman, however, found no probable cause to charge Corro with violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act (Republic Act No. 3019).<\/p>\n

According to the Ombudsman, \u201cthe act of classifying complainant\u2019s abode and several others as situated within the danger\/unsafe zones without proper reference to the CLUP and multi-hazard maps, albeit improper and careless, does not, by itself, establish the presence of manifest partiality, evident bad faith and\/or gross inexcusable negligence\u201d as required under R.A. No. 3019.<\/p>\n

The Ombudsman also noted that \u201cit is just unfortunate that DSWD was noticeably tardy in crafting guidelines for the proper implementation of its ESA program. Factually, when the municipality prepared the original list of 16,613 names, there was no clear DSWD guidelines as to the qualifications of intended ESA beneficiaries.<\/p>\n

Memorandum Circular No. 24 came out only after the original list was submitted to DSWD regional office and, by that time, those included were already thinking that they qualified for assistance. It is therefore, not surprising that complainant accused respondents of chipping away the ESA funds by altering the original list and causing bona fide beneficiaries to be disqualified on the pretext that they reside in danger\/unsafe zones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simple neglect of duty is defined as \u201cthe failure to give proper attention to a task expected of an employee resulting from either carelessness or indifference.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CEBU CITY\u00a0\u2013 The Office of the Ombudsman ordered on Monday the two-month suspension of former Daanbantayan, Cebu Mayor Augusto Corro …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":122911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[27128,27127,27126,4763],"class_list":["post-122908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ph","tag-cebu-mayor-augusto-corro","tag-emergency-shelter-assistance-esa","tag-ex-cebu-town-mayor-penalized-for-yolanda-fund-mess","tag-office-of-the-ombudsman","mauthors-luel-galarpe","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}