Displaced workers press suspension of MP execs

By Dexter A. See

BONTOC, Mountain Province – A number of displaced workers in the Barlig municipal government petitioned the provincial board to issue a preventive suspension against several municipal officials to prevent acts of oppression, abuse of authority, destruction of evidence and tyranny in public office and in the interest of justice.

Barlig town mayor Magdalena K. Lupoyon, Vice-Mayor Edmundo C. Sidchayao and councilors Rockybal S. Dakillay, Fernando Y. Cablog and Ben C. Banya-ao have been charged before the provincial board for grave misconduct, abuse of authority and oppression for allegedly deliberately deleting the positions of four permanent employees appointed by the previous administration without just cause and due process.

In a rejoinder to an earlier complaint, Minda Bagano, Pablo Festiken and Remicio N. Chalway argued that the concerned municipal officials have the same thinking in upholding the acts of the mayor in protecting her reported despotic and whimsical exercise of her powers which is to the detriment of permanent employees like them.

The municipal council reportedly passed an ordinance abolishing the positions of the four employees even if the Commission on Audit and the Civil Service Commission came out with an earlier position that the municipal government could appoint them to their respective positions even without the approval of the 2007 municipal budget provided that the positions they are supposed to occupy are included in the budget.

The complainants pointed out that there is no need to presume what demeanor the officials have by perusing all the records. Certainly, the municipal budget officer did not sign the certificate of availability of funds for the salaries of the affected workers because from the very start, she allegedly intended to delete their positions from the executive budget.

Worst, the mayor allegedly constructively dismissed Bagano by assigning her to act as a midwife in one of the remote areas of the town in order for her to be unable to pursue the case.

Under the guise of streamlining the rank and file, she allegedly disallowed the Bagano to perform her duties as a sanitary inspector by not recognizing her reports.

Ironically, the mayor appointed a certain Julieva Tumayab to act as the sanitary inspector to replace Bagano, thus, the approval of sanitary permits in the town has now been prejudiced because of the refusal of the designated municipal health officer to approve Bagano’s reports due to the alleged oppressive orders of the mayor in constructively dismissing her.

Barlig has now two sanitary inspectors performing the same functions, one who is acting in a permanent capacity which happens to be Bagano and another appointed in a contractual capacity who happens to be Tumayab.

The provincial board is currently conducting an investigation on the administrative case filed against Barlig municipal officials but the complainants asserted that preventive suspension is a necessary remedy in cases where respondents have eminent and actual premeditated attempt and design to influence evidences against them.