Ombudsman recommends no bail for ex-mayor in receipt tampering

The Office of the Ombudsman has filed multiple counts of graft against a former mayor of Bacolod City after she allegedly tampered receipts to pad supposed expenses in her liquidation reports in 2004.

 

The Ombudsman's prosecutors indicted Luzviminda Valdez on four counts each of graft and malversation of public funds.  They recommended that she be held without bail on three of four malversation charges.

 

The recommendation was based on Article 217 (4) of the Revised Penal Code that set the maximum penalty of reclusion perpetua for malversation of public funds when the amount involved was more than of P22,000.

 

The Ombudsman found that Valdez defrauded the city government by submitting tampered receipts in her liquidation reports in 2004.

 

Valdez served as mayor of Bacolod City from 2001 to 2004.

 

Auditors found that pharmacy receipts for purchases worth only P9.20 and P65.00 were falsified with to make it appear that P30,920 and P50,065.00 were paid.

 

Prosecutors said anti-graft investigators obtained copies of the genuine receipts indicating the payment of the smaller amounts for supplies meant for the city's mobile health clinic program.

 

Case records showed that a third receipt for P68,095.25 was found to have been padded from the original amount of only P95.25 paid for pharmacy supplies.

 

The prosecution also said Valdez liquidated expenses worth P135,000 for accomodations and meals at a resort and restaurant when the money paid was only P3,253.

 

 

She allegedly did the same at another time at the resort, liquidating P19,350 in expenses when the actual payment was only P510.

 

Meanwhile, the Ombudsman also indicted former Angeles City Mayor Francis Nepomuceno for allegedly causing undue injury to his city when he caused the local government to donate an AUV worth P785,000 to a political ally in June 2010. —NB, GMA News