Camarines Norte governor suspended over sex scandal

The Office of the Ombudsman has ordered the six-month suspension of re-elected Camarines Norte Governor Edgardo Tallado for “disgraceful and immoral conduct” over the proliferation on social media of his sex video and nude photos with his alleged mistress.

“Wherefore, judgement is rendered finding respondent Edgardo Tallado administratively liable for Disgraceful and Immoral Conduct for which he is meted the penalty of six months suspension and one day without pay,” the six-page Ombudsman decision read.

The Ombudsman directed Interior Secretary Mel Senen Sarmiento to implement the decision “immediately upon receipt thereof."

The suspension order was recommended by Ombudsman director for Preliminary Investigation, Administrative Adjudication and Prosecution, Adoracion Agbada on October 22, 2015.

The recommendation was signed and approved by Morales on August 8, 2016.

The anti-graft body said the penalty meted against Tallado was in accordance with administrative rules under Republic Act 6770 or the Ombudsman Act of 1989.

A certain Jonel Banal, who filed the complaint against Tallado, accused him of being immoral and offensive because of his supposed extramarital affair, which the complainant claimed caused “embarrassment and humiliation of the people of Camarines Norte, especially the women sector.”

Tallado’s rumored extramarital affair became fodder for the media after Tallado's wife Josie disappeared but surfaced after nearly a week in October 2014, claiming her life was in danger after she found out about her husband’s alleged mistress.

Photos showing Tallado with another woman also went viral on social media soon afterwards, prompting some sectors, including a group of 3,000 women, to demand for the governor’s resignation.

The Ombudsman dismissed Tallado’s argument that the case filed before the Ombudsman is a form of forum shopping since there is already a pending similar complaint filed against him with the Office of the President in January 2015.

Forum shopping is defined as the institution of two or more actions or proceedings involving the same parties for the same cause of action, either simultaneously or successively, on the supposition that one or the other court would make a favorable disposition.

“[T]he complaint filed on 16 January 2015 before the Office of the President does not deprive this Office of jurisdiction over the present case, which was filed ahead on Nov. 14, 2014,” the Ombudsman’s decision read. —NB, GMA News