SABANGAN, Mountain Province – The punong barangay of Namatec filed administrative charges against one of his barangay kagawad and sought for suspension as a temporary relief and her subsequent dismissal from the service.
Namatec punong barangay Melchor S. Bao-idang, Jr., in his complaint filed before the blue-ribbon committee of the Sanggunang Bayan here, sought the indictment of his barangay kagawad Hilda de Castro Obar for alleged acts unbecoming of a public official.
The complaint emanated from the alleged affidavit complaint of three Namatec constituents accusing Kagawad Obar of estafa to which Bao-idang took it as ground to file in their behalf an administrative case against the former in addition to the alleged falsification committed by Obar when in filing the administrative complaint against Bao-idang , Obar and her elder brother Morris Obar (complainant to the administrative case against Bao-idang) allegedly conspired with each other and submitted a falsified barangay attendance sheet by allegedly adding entries thereon which do not actually appear in the original copy of the barangay sheet.
Earlier, the elder Obar filed an administrative complaint against Bao-idang, the Punong Barangay of Namatec, for alleged abuse of authority in dismissing him as barangay tanod without the due process of law. Said case is now for the blue ribbon’s decision as its investigation ended/ finalized last July 29, 2015 the same day that the administrative case against the younger Obar started its investigation in the afternoon.
In her defense, where Obar submitted an answer on July 20, 2015 to the blue Ribbon Committee alleging that, “ to the fact that the complainant is the Punong Baranmgay of Namatec, Sabangan, does not automatically vest authority to him to represent the constituents from his community in filing of an administrative complaint against anyone, particularly the herein respondent.
Further he is not a party-in-interest as he will never be affected by the outcome of any case to be filed against the respondent involving the alleged transactions. Consequently, he has no legal standing to institute the present complaint.” Obar futher alleged in her verified answer that with regards to the falsification, the basic rule in falsification is that there must be untruthful statements made in a document and that such facts or statements are absolutely false.
In the assailed attendance sheet, the complainant merely alleged that there were added entries thereon without
any evidence to show that such added entries were untruthful band absolutely false to warrant the present complaint.
Obar instead prayed to the Officers and members of the Sangguniang Bayan (blue Ribbon Committee) to dismiss the case for lack of merit and for other relief, just and equitable on the alleged foregoing premises.