23 Alcala officials accused of plunder
SPM’S SECOND COMPLAINT
A SECOND complaint was filed by the Save Pangasinan Movement Inc. last May 26 against a past and present mayor of Alcala and numerous councilors that served differently, again.
This time the complaint is for plunder or violation of Republic Act No. 7080 and technical malversation, against 23 officials of Alcala town before the Ombudsman, separate from the complaint for technical malversation and violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act filed against practically the same respondents on April 28.
The new complaint signed by Manuel Tolentino, president and Fluerdeliz Cabalteja, secretary-general, the same complainants who initiated the first case against 19 respondents.
The new complaint accused the respondents to have allegedly conspired to misappropriate, malverse and misuse the amount of Php298, 210,387 from the 10 percent Local Government Unit (LGU) share and 80 percent congressional share of the Tobacco Excise Tax from the accumulated years of 1997-2007, 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2013.
Of the amount, P16,844,439 was allegedly applied to infrastructure projects; Php4,362,395 for seed subsidy; Php55,078,705.05 for public debt interest payment; Php221,925,347.50 for agro-industrial complex with its machineries and implements such as rice and corn drying facility located in Barangay Bersamin, Alcala.
The complaint stated that all these appropriations are violative of RA 8240 Section 8 and JMC (Joint Memorandum Circular) 2009-1, making the named public officials in the complaint liable for technical malversation for what the complainants described as “existence of a pattern of criminal acts of misuse, misapplication, and misappropriation of more than P50 million which at the same time also make them liable for plunder as well.”
The respondents in these cases are Atty. Manuel Collado, former mayor of Alcala; Ryan Paolo Mencias, former mayor and now mayor; Elizabeth Cabreros, Alegria Almajano, Jojo Callejo, Eduardo de la Cruz Sr., Fe Perigrino, Mario Cerezo, Rodolfo Rosquita, Gerardo Ablao, Emme Luisa Ramos, Amor Espiritu, Reynaldo Catalan, Enrico Theodore Ramos, Felomino Racpan, Thelmaminda Mencias, in their capacity as municipal councilors; Anneli Manzano, municipal budget officer; Roselily Ferrer, municipal treasurer; Natividad Peregrino, municipal accountant; Ignacio Gelacio, municipal planning and development officer and Alexander Lazaga, municipal engineer
The complainants alleged that the law on tobacco excise tax, RA 8240 and the JMC 2009-1 is very explicit in its mandate that the fund ensuing from the collection of the tobacco excise tax shall be applied in the pursuit of projects consistent with specific objectives.
The complaint alleged that the funds were applied instead to infrastructure projects, seed subsidy and payment of public debt interest, the complainants said.
While RA 8240 Section 8 and JMC 2009-1 indeed provided for agro-industrial project, it clearly stated that such agro-industrial project should be for post-harvest and secondary processing like cigarette manufacturing and by-product utilization, meaning agro-industrial project for tobacco and not for rice and corn drying facility, they alleged.
At the same time, the complaint affidavit averred that the fund from the tobacco excise tax cannot be identified as general fund since the tobacco excise tax fund has its own law and implementing rules.
SPM maintains that a national law cannot be superseded by a local ordinance. (Leonardo Micua)
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