Ombudsman’s inaction perpetuating injustice

WE ARE employees of the municipal government of Hinabangan, Samar. Our mayor, Alejandro Abarratigue, has refused to give the salaries and benefits due us since Jan. 1, 2010. And without our consent, he transferred our stations to a remote barangay that is about 50 kilometers away from the municipal building where we are supposed to hold our respective offices.

As a result of these highly unlawful and irregular acts of Mayor Abarratigue, we filed administrative and criminal complaints against him with the Office of the Deputy Ombudsman for the Visayas in Cebu City. We received copies of the orders issued by the Ombudsman for Mayor Abarratigue to file his answers to the complaints and to furnish copies of his answers to us, the complainants. However, since then, we have not received any order or notice from the Office of the Deputy Ombudsman for the Visayas; neither were we furnished copies of the counter-affidavits executed by the mayor, if it did file such pleadings with the Ombudsman.

We sought the assistance of the Commission on Human Rights Region VIII in Tacloban City. It immediately sent a letter to the Ombudsman for the Visayas, requesting an update on the status of the complaints we filed against the mayor. Based on the reply of the Ombudsman for the Visayas, it appears that our complaints were not resolved within the prescribed period; our request for the suspension of Mayor Abarratigue pending investigation by the Ombudsman has likewise not been acted upon; and despite the fact that the cases have been pending for a long period of time, we have not been furnished by the respondent mayor a copy of his counter-affidavits, if he had indeed filed them, as required by law.

These are indications that the Office of the Ombudsman has been negligent in the discharge of its constitutional duties to investigate and prosecute irregularities committed by officers in the public service. It is no wonder that the former Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez herself was impeached by the House of Representatives. As it is said, if the crown of the tree is rotten, so are its branches and roots.

We therefore implore President Aquino or Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo for immediate help that we may be saved from the injustice being done to us by Mayor Abarratigue.

—NIDA NABLO, municipal DSWD office;

JUDITH TINAY, nurse,

municipal health office;

ELENA DIEZA, municipal accountant;

RAUL BACNOTAN,

agricultural technologist,

Office of the Municipal Agriculturist