DILG recommends Ombudsman to impose disciplinary action on 20 barangay officials

June 18, 2020

The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) on Thursday said they  recommended to the Office of the Ombudsman to impose disciplinary action against 20 barangay officials in Metro Manila for violating enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) protocols.

In a letter to Ombudsman Samuel Martires dated last June 16, DILG Undersecretary for Barangay Affairs Martin Diño said the 20 barangay officials were initially sent show cause orders, pursuant to Administrative Order No. 267 delegating the supervisory powers of the President to the DILG, to seek their response to the allegations hurled against them.

Finding their response insufficient, Diño said they found enough evidence and grounds to warrant their endorsement to the Office of the Ombudsman.

"We have received complaints and reports against them so despite their answer on the show cause order, we decided to still bring to the Ombudsman the evidence we have gathered,” he said.

Of the 20 barangays officials, five are from Caloocan City; five from Quezon City; two from Parañaque City; one from Mandaluyong City, Las Piñas, Manila City, Makati, Pasay City, Taguig City, Marikina City, and Muntinlupa City.

Diño said their offenses involve violations in the implementation of physical distancing, illegal cockfighting, gambling, poor enforcement of lockdown protocols as children were seen playing in the streets, negligence and gross neglect of duty, among others.

He added that reports of anomalies relating to the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) have been endorsed to the Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (PNP-CIDG) for case build-up and filing of criminal cases.

The undersecretary said various complaints were lodged with the DILG Emergency Operation Center, Hotline 8888, and even e-mail and text messages and his teams “went to the ground to validate and confirm the complaints” to ensure that cases to be filed have merit.

Diño said most cases were found to be valid as these have been filed by many persons.

“Sometimes, we received at least 50 complaints for only one barangay official. From there, you can see that it is not only politicking but there is a high probability that they are doing something,” he said.

He said the public can expect more cases to reach the Office of the Ombudsman since his office is investigating more than 100 barangay executives for various ECQ violations.  Ella Dionisio/DMS