INQUIRER Global Nation

THE Office of the Visayas Ombudsman required government employees and officials to state the purpose of using government issued vehicles in their trip tickets to avoid being accused of misusing these cars for personal trips.

Assistant Deputy Ombudsman Visayas Virginia Palanca-Santiago yesterday clarified the guidelines on the Oplan Red Plate, a campaign against the illegal use of government vehicles.

Santiago said all trips to malls to eat should be recorded in the trip ticket as well as the all passengers in the vehicle.

Santiago gave this clarification after a Provincial Board (PB) member and a Bureau of Immigration (BI) officer were caught by a task force parking their government issued vehicles in the malls.

The Oplan Red Plate task force recently tagged 15 government issued vehicles which were supposedly used for personal purposes.

However Apostol said PB member Wilfredo Caminero and BI alien control officer Reynaldo Almaden explained their side of the incidents.

"Pwede naman, natural tao lang din sila, di naman pwede na di sila kakain (It's okay they are only human it's not that they are not allowed to eat),” Deputy Ombudsman Visayas Pelagio Apostol said of taking the government vehicle to a mall to eat.

But Santiago said the trips to the malls should be recorded in the trip ticket.

She said all travels using government vehicles should have trip tickets and these should be filled up carefully.

"That should be placed in their trip ticket, they should indicate where they have eaten,” Santiago said.

She said all passengers must be mentioned to ensure that family were not among the passengers.

Caminero's service vehicle was spotted in SM City last Saturday.

But the PB member explained that he only ate there prior to attending a function at the Cebu International Convention Center in Mandaue City.

Almaden said he parked his car at Ayala Cebu since he was accompanying foreign investors there.

Apostol said their investigators went to the different agencies to determine where the vehicles were assigned to and who were its authorized drivers.

Officials and employees found liable would face sanctions ranging from reprimands and suspension to dismissal from service if the officials or employees resort to falsification of documents.

Santiago said their office already gave out their hot line numbers to the media to report these cases.