THE Office of the Ombudsman on Friday dismissed six government officials for illegally appropriating money from the multi-billion-peso Priority Development Assistance Fund or pork barrel.
Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales ordered the dismissal of Dennis Cunanan, Marivic Jover and Consuelo Lilian Espiritu of the Technology Resource Center, along with Maria Ninez Guañizo, Victor Roman Cacal and Rhodora Mendoza from National Agribusiness Corp. for dishonesty.
Morales also ordered the forfeiture of all their retirement benefits and their perpetual disqualification from holding public office.
Investigators found Cunanan and the other respondents guilty of illegally using the pork barrel of representatives Candido Pancrudo Jr. of Bukidnon and Reno Lim of Albay.
From 2007 to 2010, Pancrudo received P49.2 million in pork barrel for livelihood training and to buy kits on goat and swine raising, banana and sweet potato culturing. Lim received P30 million in 2007 as his pork barrel for livelihood training.
But the investigators found that the projects and their supposed recipients were fake.
The non-government organizations identified and endorsed by the lawmakers were also dubious, while the liquidation report submitted to account for the pork-barrel funds were fabricated.
“While they may argue that they had nothing to do with the submission of these falsified documents, the patent inconsistencies or irregularities should have alerted them and urged them to exercise more caution in the approval of the disbursement vouchers,” the Ombudsman’s resolution says.
“Respondents [exhibited] a deliberate lack of care or diligence in the performance of their respective duties in such a way as to achieve the common design of defrauding the government.”
The Ombudsman ordered the filing of charges against Lim in November 2015 for illegally using his pork barrel in 2007.
The agency also charged Pancrudo with two counts of graft and illegal use of public funds.
