Retards in the Government 298

It's your weekly compendium of foolishness and corruption in the Philippine government.

  

 

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1731687/village-councilor-3-drug-suspects-nabbed-in-bicol

A village councilor and three other drug personalities were arrested on Friday, Feb. 17, in buy-bust operations in the Bicol region, police said Saturday.

Colonel Julius Caesar Domingo, Camarines Sur police chief, said in a report that Noel Viñas, 47, was collared at 5:45 p.m. for selling a sachet of “shabu” (crystal meth) worth P500 to an undercover agent in Barangay Kilomaon in Sagñay town.

Domingo said Viñas was an village councilor in the area and previously surrendered to the police at the height of the government’s campaign against illegal drugs.

During the body search, the authorities recovered two sachets of shabu worth P1,564.

A village councilor has been arrested on drug charges. 

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1731103/leonen-corruption-still-exists-in-courts

Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen urged lawyers on Thursday to speak out against corruption, saying it still exists in the government, including the judiciary, and remains “a significant factor in engendering inequality in our society.” “Impartiality suffers when corruption infects courts,” Leonen said at the 19th National Convention of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) in Davao City, according to a tweet by the Supreme Court public information office.

According to him, any court that is corrupt “becomes an instrument only by those in power and will favor only those who have resources.”

“A public office is always a public trust,” Leonen said, emphasizing that “corruption weakens the rule of law and therefore the confidence of people in the government.”

To lawyers attending the convention, he encouraged them to report any incident of corruption, especially when it involves attempts to rig decisions in cases, even including those pending in the high tribunal.

“No retired justice of the Supreme Court has control of any member of the [Supreme] Court, let alone a majority of the court,” Leonen said.

“Should any of them imply, should any of those that came from the judiciary imply that they can facilitate the outcome of a case pending in our court, you are obliged to report them to us, through the Office of the Chief Justice,” he added.

“This applies to any former member of the Judiciary who approaches you, be it a judge, former judge, a Justice of an appellate court, or of the Supreme Court,” he stressed.

Previously, Leonen said that keeping silent allows the abuse of the system to favor those who have the means, can legitimize greed and cause injustice.

With this, he urged lawyers and law students to have the courage to do what is right.

Supreme Court justice Leonen says there is still corruption in the judicial system. 

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/02/17/23/lanao-del-sur-governor-injured-4-others-killed-in-ambush

Lanao del Sur Governor Mamintal Alonto Adiong Jr. was injured after unidentified gunmen ambushed his convoy Friday, police said.

Adiong and his staff member, Ali Macapado Tabao, sustained gunshot wounds and are now being treated in Bukidnon Provincial Hospital in Kalilangan town, according to the municipal police station.

Four others were reportedly killed in the ambush.

After attending an event, Adiong's convoy was ambushed at around 4 p.m. in Maguing town by unknown perpetrators, said the Police Regional Office - Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.

The convoy was supposed to get to Wao town.

"Governor Bombit Adiong is safe and out of danger," the governor's office said Friday night.

Lanao del Sur Governor Mamintal Alonto Adiong Jr. has survived an assassination attempt. 

https://mb.com.ph/2023/02/18/village-chair-eludes-arrest-in-anti-drug-operation/

Police have launched a manhunt against a barangay chairman who escaped an anti-drug operation in Pikit, Cotabato on Thursday, Feb. 16.

Brig. Gen Jimili Macaraeg, Police Regional Office 12 director, said the suspect Sindato Karim eluded arrest after authorities stormed his house in Barangay Lagunde.

However, they arrested his wife, Nor-am, who yielded 30 grams of suspected shabu worth P130,000 and improvised explosive device.

Police tagged Sindato as a narco-politician involved in illegal drug trafficking in the provinces of Cotabato and Maguindanao.

Macaraeg said the Karims were placed under surveillance in the past months for their alleged involvement in illegal drug trade and other criminal activities.

Charges for illegal possession of prohibited drugs and explosive will be filed against Nor-am.

A village councilor tagged as a narco-politician and found to have drugs and an explosive device in his house has eluded capture by the police.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1731855/paranaque-mayor-13-others-face-graft-raps

Several officials of the Parañaque City government, including first-term Mayor Eric Olivarez are facing graft complaints before the Ombudsman for approving an allegedly “railroaded” contract worth almost P415 million with a new garbage hauler last year.

Aside from the city mayor, also named in the complaint were bids and awards committee (BAC) chair Voltaire dela Cruz; BAC vice chair Johnson Ong; and BAC members Rosa Rebecca Viñas and Josephine Mary Centena.

Also named as respondents were members of the BAC technical working group: Mark Espinosa, Kristine Joy Teston; Francisco Agamata; Ivan Hortilano; Maan Shayne Pausanos; Ricardo Factor; Ronald Austria; Danilo Nopuente; and Leonard John Navata.

In his 25-page compliant filed on Feb. 16, Genaro Clemente, Jr., a resident of Barangay San Antonio, urged the Ombudsman to put Olivarez and his co-accused under preventive suspension “in order to avoid the destruction or manufacture of evidence and to prevent them from threatening and harassing employees of the local government of Parañaque.”

Olivarez awarded the contract to Metrowaste Solid Waste Management Corp. on Dec. 27, 2022, amounting to P414,803,520.

This was just 25 days after the BAC published its call for bidding at the PhilGEPS website on Dec. 2, 2022.

Clemente claimed that Metrowaste failed to acquire the necessary documentary requirements of the bid, which resulted in garbage piling up in the streets of Parañaque during the holidays.

Last month, Olivarez ordered an investigation of possible “sabotage and deliberate acts” by Leonel Waste Management Corp. that resulted in pileup of trash during the Christmas and New Year celebrations.

Several officials of the Parañaque City government, including first-term Mayor Eric Olivarez are facing graft complaints over an allegedly anomalous waste management deal. 

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1732023/aparri-vice-mayor-5-others-killed-in-nueva-vizcaya-ambush

The vice mayor of Aparri in Cagayan and five of his companions were shot and killed by unidentified men clad in police uniforms and riding in a government car in Bagabag town in Nueva Vizcaya on Sunday.

Nueva Vizcaya police information officer Major Jolly Villar said in a phone interview that Vice Mayor Rommel Alameda, who is serving his third term as vice mayor, and five of his aides and companions were traveling in a Hyundai Starex van on their way to Aparri when they were waylaid by the gunmen in Sitio (sub-village) Kinacao in Barangay (village) Baretbet at 8:45 a.m.

Investigations revealed that the suspects were wearing police uniforms with masks and were using a white Mitsubishi Adventure with a red license plate number SFN 713, indicating that it was a government car.

The killers allegedly barricaded the section of street in front of MV Duque Elementary School in Baretbet. When Alameda’s car arrived, they peppered the vehicle with bullets.

The vice mayor and his companions died on the spot but were still taken to the Region 2 Trauma and Medical Center where they were declared dead on arrival. The report did not identify the names of the vice mayor’s companions.

The killers later fled going to Solano area.

The Vice Mayor of Aparri and five others have been killed after being ambushed apparently by members of the PNP. 

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1733744/300-unqualified-bucor-workers-face-termination

Over 300 Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) personnel who are in danger of being terminated next month for failing to earn a college degree and pass the civil service examination have asked for a two-year extension to comply with the law.

Under Republic Act No. 10575, or the BuCor Act of 2013, which took effect on March 15, 2018, applicants must have a bachelor’s degree and possess the appropriate civil service eligibility. Current employees who do not meet the requirements were given five years or until March 15, 2023, to do so.

In a radio interview on Tuesday, lawyer Jose Ventura Asturias, the counsel of the affected personnel, some of whom have been with the BuCor for 30 to 40 years, said the two-year extension covers the period lost because of the COVID-19 pandemic, or from 2020 to 2022.

“The requirements, including off-campus programs and review classes, were not provided to the BuCor employees. The biggest justification [for their request] was the COVID-19 pandemic, where services provided by the BuCor and the CSC (or Civil Service Commission) were paralyzed,” he said.

He stressed that under the law, government agencies should help affected BuCor employees, saying they were hopeful of getting the support of new BuCor and Department of Justice officials.

According to Asturias, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla had said that he would look into the matter.

“While there is already a law to be implemented, if its implementation becomes prejudicial and compromises those who are to be affected, then automatically there’s got to be a way to adjust it,” he said.

BuCor acting Director General Gregorio Catapang Jr., however, seemed less sympathetic, saying that the bureau had “made rigorous efforts” to address the concerns of affected personnel.

300 BuCor personnel are about to be laid off for not meeting proper requirements for employment. Some have been with the bureau for 30-40 years and yet they were not grandfathered in.