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Mandaue City, Philippines – Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes on Monday filed two cases against former Mandaue City College (MCC) school president Dr. Paulus Mariae Cañete for alleged offenses during his term as the school’s head.
Filed with the Office of the Ombudsman in the Visayas against Cañete was one charge for malversation of public funds and another for hiring unqualified personnel.
The filing came after the mayor cut MCC’s stay at a city-owned campus in Barangay (village) Ibabao last Friday. The mayor had ordered MCC’s operations transferred to the Mandaue City Sports Complex, paving the way for the Mandaue City National Science High School (MCNSHS) to use the building formerly used by the MCC.
In the malversation case, Cortes claimed that Cañete failed to turn over “all records pertaining to the college especially the (bank) passbook and all financial transactions” before or after the MCC Board of Trustees ordered him to cease and desist from dispensing the functions as school president last year.
Cortes cited Article 217 of the Local Government Code (LGC), which states that “the failure of a public officer to have duly forthcoming any public funds or property with which he is chargeable, upon demand by any duly authorized officer, shall be prima facie evidence that he has to put such missing funds or property to personal uses.”
In the case for illegal appointments, Cortes said Cañete appointed as employees of MCC candidates who lost in the May 2007 elections.
He cited the LGC prohibits people who lost in an election – except barangay elections – from being placed in any appointed position in government or a government-owned company within a year of the election in which they ran.
Cortes pointed out that several Cañete appointees to MCC – Dean Benjamin Luage; encoder and teacher Marilou Namocatcat; property custodian and math teacher Edgar dela Paz; administrative staff Rio Bert Branoco; and driver Dodong Lagom – ran for city government positions under the slate of mayoral candidate Eddie “Jon” Cortes in the May 2007 elections. They all lost.
Cortes said Cañete first appointed the five MCC personnel when Cañete became MCC president in 2005. The mayor, however, pointed to Secion 63 of the Election Code, which stated that any person who holds a public appointive position is considered resigned from that position upon the filing of a certificate of candidacy, which meant that the five MCC personnel resigned from the city-run school when they ran in the May 2007 election.
Since they lost in that election, their reappointment to the MCC should not have been possible for at least a year, Cortes said.
Meanwhile, students and staff of the MCC have been keeping vigil outside the school’s former campus since Friday, fearful that their academic records kept in locked rooms in the building might disappear after a Commission on Audit (COA) visit at the building on Monday.
COA personnel inspected the school building to segregate properties that belong to the MCC, which now holds classes at the Mandaue City Sports Complex, and the MCNSHS, which officially took over the building last Friday.
Elmer Ripalda, dean of MCC’s Information Technology and Engineering Department, said the group was willing to vacate the premises of the building, just as long as MCC properties that are still inside the building, such as students’ academic records and lab equipment, are released to them along with the teachers’ personal belongings, and if the city issues an official notice as to when MCC personnel and students should leave.
He said the notice given to Dr. Susana Cabahug, whom the mayor designated MCC’s head, would not do because they still recognized Dr. Paulus Cañete as the school’s legitimate head.
Cortes said Cañete has not been the president of MCC since December 2006, when his contract expired.
Still, Cañete insists that he enjoys tenure as MCC’s president.
Members of the MCC’s faculty and staff are divided between Cañete and Cabahug.
Ripalda, a Cañete supporter, argued that the MCC operations headed by Cabahug at the sports complex were not legal.
“There is a council resolution naming it an illegal extension of MCC,” he said.
Ripalda said “legitimate” MCC operations would be transferred to the Eversley Child Sanitarium and General Hospital in barangay Jagobiao, which is also headed by Cañete.
He said Cañete assured that some rooms at the hospital would be available for MCC classes by Wednesday.
Interior Undersecretary Lito Ruiz has ordered an investigation of the mayor’s turnover of the school building from the MCC to MCNSHS last Friday.
A number of students claimed they were injured and harassed by police personnel and barangay tanods (village security officers) during Friday’s turnover, during which students and staff of the MCC were prevented from entering the premises.
One student claimed to have been punched in the face by a barangay tanod, while another claimed that a policeman choked him to prevent him from entering.
Senior Inspector Siegfried Toribio, commander of police station 1, denied that his men, who helped secure the building during the turnover, hurt anyone.
He said it was the students who were disrespectful when they tried to break down the barricade at the school entrance and struck the mayor’s vehicle while calling him names.
“They're the ones who harassed us, they're the ones who punched us. We never struck back,” Toribio said.
Since Saturday, a mock grave with a defaced picture of Cortes was set up along the perimeter wall of MCC. /With UP Masscom Intern Kristine Rose C. Garcia
