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THE
Office of the Ombudsman has ordered the dismissal of the
assistant postmaster general of the Philippine Postal
Corp. (Philpost) for grave misconduct and dishonesty
when the postal executive extended a contract without
public bidding and without the consent and prior
approval of the board.
PhilPost
information officer Tirso Paglicawan Jr. said the Office
of the Ombudsman’s graft investigation and prosecution
officer Ruth Laura Mella investigated Antonio de Guzman
and found him guilty. The penalty of dismissal includes
all its accessory penalties and without prejudice to
criminal prosecution.
Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez directed the agency’s
postmaster general to immediately implement the
dismissal order and reminded the postmaster general that
under the Ombudsman Rules of Procedure, only a temporary
restraining order or writ of preliminary injunction by a
court of competent jurisdiction can cause the delay of
any order of the Ombudsman.
The case
stemmed from the original complaint filed with the
Office of the Postmaster General on September 21, 2004,
that was initiated by Sim Oresca Mata Jr., chief of the
prosecution division of the PhilPost Legal Service.
PhilPost
then had an existing contract with Aboitiz Air Transport
Corp. for the carriage of mail in the amount of P5 per
kilogram inclusive of value-added tax. The contract was
set to expire on December 31, 2002.
On May
7, 2004, in a letter to Efren Uy of Aboitiz, de Guzman,
in his capacity then as officer in charge of PhilPost,
extended the contract under new terms without any public
bidding. The rate per kilogram of mail was also
unilaterally increased by de Guzman without the consent
and prior approval of the PhilPost board of directors.
In his
defense, de Guzman argued the complaint has prescribed
and must be dismissed. He said every aggrieved party is
only given a period of one year from the time of the
commission of the offense to file his administrative
complaint, citing Paragraph 5, Section 20 of Republic
Act 6770.
De
Guzman, likewise, averred the plan to extend the
contract of PhilPost with Aboitiz and the proposal to
increase the rate per kilogram of mail was a byproduct
of a thorough study conducted by the PhilPost Central
Mail Exchange Center (CMEC).
He
said the extended contract was referred to the PhilPost
board for its appropriate determination in a special
board meeting on April 29, 2004. Hence, the decision to
extend the contract and to increase the rate was not his
action alone.
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