Gov. Isidro Zayco last night said he has directed the Provincial Legal Office to determine the administrative and criminal liability of persons responsible for the disappearance of National Food Authority rice intended for the Food-for-Work program of the Negros Occidental provincial government.
Zayco said he had earlier asked the Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office to investigate the status of the distribution of NFA rice stored at the Panaad Nursery Warehouse in Barangay Mansilingan, Bacolod City, through the Provincial Environment Management Office.
The initial report of the PNP is that about 396.79 sacks of NFA rice amounting to about P357,111 cannot be accounted for by the provincial personnel concerned, Zayco said in his memorandum to the PLO.
Zayco directed the PLO to conduct an investigation and to submit recommendations and file the necessary cases against the erring personnel as evidence may warrant.
A NOPPO investigation report said that on July 12 a text message was received by the governor about rice being taken from the warehouse at dawn.
The facts gathered sufficiently establish that only Romulo Sibulboro, Panaad nursery supervisor, was in full control of the key to the warehouse at the Panaad nursery from August 2007 to May 2008 when the alleged discrepancy occurred, the NOPPO report said.
This was shown by the statements of the witnesses who all gave their accounts of the issue under investigation, the report added.
It was also established that, on several occasions, Sibulboro entrusted the key of the warehouse to a certain GL Leonardo, wife of Refi Leonardo, to open the warehouse and withdraw rice without his presence, the report said.
The key could have been secretly duplicated without his knowledge, the police report added. It was noted that the rice disappeared without any sign of forcible entry.
PO2 Eric Salavado, who was tasked to investigate the matter, said it is his firm belief that the disappearance of the rice was a result of mismanagement attributed to negligence on the part of Sibulboro.
The police investigator recommended that Sibulboro be made to justify where the unaccounted rice went with supporting documents. Otherwise, he will be charged under the existing rules of the Civil Service Commission, being a government employee and held criminally liable for qualified theft under the Revised Penal Code, the police investigator said.
The same case could also be filed against the Leonardo couple as accomplices, he added in his report to the governor.*CPG
The Visayan Daily Star
BY CARLA GOMEZ
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