By Leonardo Micua

 

COMEDIAN   Roderick Paulate was meted 62 years for hiring ghost employees in his office when he was Quezon City councilor in 2010, who cannot be traced if they existed or not.

Note that Paulate was found guilty by the Sandiganbayan to have committed one count of graft and got a jail term of eight years, another six years for falsification by a public officer and eight counts (at six-year jail term each) for falsification of public documents that he was all accused of committing.

Aside from the imprisonment, Paulate was ordered to indemnify the government in the amount of P1.109 million that could earn an interest of six percent per annum until fully settled, P10,000 fine for one case of falsification by a public officer, and another P10,000 fine each for the eight cases of falsification of public documents that he was charged of.

Here in Dagupan, some people who made a mockery of the scholarship program of the past Dagupan City administration by creating fake scholars have reason to worry after what Paulate earned for violating the law because the truth will soon be known.

There is a list of “ghost” scholars who cannot be found in the barangays where they were claimed to be residents, list of non-resident scholars who were from non-Dagupan residents, and even a list of dummy scholars, found to be ineligible to go to college.

Then, we got wind of the Audit Observation Memorandum (AOM) of COA dated December 1, 2022 that disclosed that 141 scholars were paid of their benefits in February and March this year despite the fact that five were non-residents of Dagupan, two had failed grades, 85 had incomplete grades, 35 had no grade and 14 whose grades are still in progress.

These violations led to the wastage of P47,170,500 in public funds that otherwise could have been used by more deserving scholars from the city.

We believed that the AOM was belatedly issued and was only reported out at a time when  most of  the accountable persons are already out of public office. Still, there can be no reason for the government, particularly the COA and the Ombudsman not to run after the culprits because precious public funds were wasted.

Now the ball is in the hands of  Mayor Belen Fernandez. Will she demand full reimbursement of all expenses that were paid by the city government to the scholars once proven to have really violated the terms and conditions of their scholarship?

But before she can do this, COA—if it really means business—must unmask the culprit public officials and hail them to court or to the Ombudsman.

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A supplemental budget of P135 million plus was passed by the Sangguniang Palalawigan last December 5 in a matter of just less than 30 minutes. Yes, 30 minutes.  

To think, the Pangasinan SP was dominated by provincial board members who run and won under the team of then Gov. Amado Espino III who never had to use their number to throw a monkey wrench on the programs and projects of the new provincial executive, Ramon Guico III.

In Dagupan, the supplemental budget proposed by Mayor Belen Fernandez before the Sangguniang Panlungsod since September is still being subjected to more committee hearings by the seven-members of the majority despite already holding five hearings on the matter. 

In fact, the sixth hearing scheduled in the afternoon of December 6 was aborted simply because the chairman of the committee, Redford Erfe-Mejia, “forgot” to issue invitation to the resource speakers after already listening to many resource speakers.

The seven members of the majority of the Dagupan SP are doing a serous disservice to the city by not acting on the proposed supplemental budgets because without these, no project and program can be implemented in the city.

The seven majority members have not yet moved on after the election, when their mayor, Brian Lim, was beaten black and blue by Belen Fernandez by a monumental 14,000 plus votes. So, by blocking Belen’s programs and projects, they believe they are avenging Brian’s defeat but at the expense of all Dagupenos. That’s not fair.

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