DAVAO CITY, Philippines — The Office of the Ombudsman has ordered the filing of malversation and Informations for Malversation and anti-graft cases against former officials of the Department of Education (DepEd) in Pagadian City.
Facing charges are Jesus Nieves and Marilou Tolosa, former officials of the Department of Education Regional Office IX in Pagadian City.
Ombudsman Mindanao investigators found that Nieves and Tolosa siphoned the money from the government of Belgium which was supposedly intended as special fund for the department.
The Omb-Mindanao found that on August 2007, Tolosa requested the Philippine Veterans Bank (PVB) to close an account denominated as the Belgian Integrated Agrarian Reform Support Programme (BIARSP).
The BIARSP account was kept for a special project funded by the government of Belgium.
Upon closure of the account, the remaining balance of P157.93 was transferred to the Deped Regional Office Trust Account.
Subsequently, on 29 November 2007, upon authority of Nieves, PVB debited the amount of P6,164,424.23 from the Deped Trust Account and transferred the money to its closed BIARSP account.
On 03 December 2007, the entire amount of P6.1million was withdrawn by respondents from its supposedly closed BIARSP account.
In June 2012, the Commission on Audit issued a Notice of Disallowance against this withdrawal as they were made by respondents without any supporting documents.
The respondents did not submit counter-affidavits during the investigation. They failed to explain how public funds were spent and utilized.
The Ombudsman resolution stated “As public officials in the discharge of their official functions, both acted with evident bad faith resulting to an injury to the government in the amount of P6,164,424.43.”-Editha Z. Caduaya/Newsline.ph
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