Gov’t doc faces new charge
A government employee who invoked a bureaucratic administrative policy before doing his job has found himself charged instead with insubordination.
Dr. Benjamin Marcial Bautista, a rural health physician and a medico-legal has been slapped with an administrative case of insubordination after he refused to conduct an autopsy on the three hotel employees murdered on Christmas Eve in Dagupan City and another victim of a vehicular accident.
Dagupan City legal officer Geraldine Baniqued said the complaint was filed January 3 by Dr. Leonard Carbonell, city health officer.
Mayor Benjamin Lim has also directed Bautista to answer the charge against him within 10 days from receipt of the complaint.
An affidavit of P02 Reynaldo Reside of Dagupan Police Station said Bautista refused to do the autopsy job on murder victims Arcyl Molano, Michale Belo and Jojo Calamagan, all employees of Floren Hotel, and another victim of a vehicular accident in spite of Carbonell’s handwritten note addressed to Bautista dated Dec. 24 that read, “Please do autopsy as requested. Thanks.”
The police again called up Bautista but he allegedly continued to refuse to do the autopsy, prompting Carbonell himself to do the job.
On Dec. 27, Carbonell issued a memorandum to Bautista ordering him to explain his action in writing.
In his reply, Bautista said when the request for autopsy was referred to him by the police officer, he requested the latter to course the request to Carbonell being the chief of office.
“I asked him (Carbonell) as a matter of procedure that I shall wait for your instruction as to whom to send to conduct the autopsy, being aware of our territorial assignment,” said Bautista, adding that he never refused the job.
Earlier, Bautista was given a 10-day suspension on November 24 by Lim for “conduct unbecoming of a public official” following the doctor’s refusal to give medical assistance to a patient complaining of chest pain. — EVA
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