The Office of the Ombudsman has indicted a mayor from Maguindanao on four counts of violation of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees or Republic Act 6713.
It ordered the filing of charges against Mayor Bai Zandria Ampatuan of Shariff Saydona Mustapha before the Sandiganbayan.
It also directed the suspension of Ampatuan for six months without pay for simple neglect of duty.
Ampatuan failed to file her Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth from 2009 to 2011, including her entry SALN upon assuming office as acting mayor in 2009.
In another development, the Ombudsman found probable cause to charge regional director
Jose Jake Dumagan Jr. of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples in Region XIII for grave threats and light threats.
The complainant—Datu Reynante Buklas, a tribal chieftain of the Mamanwa tribe in Taganito, Claver, Surigao del Norte—said he was invited by Dumagan to a meeting on March 22 last year.
During the meeting, Dumagan questioned the complainant’s act of discontinuing the services of a certain lawyer Alfonso Casurra as the tribe’s counsel without consulting respondent.
Buklas said Dumagan told him that “do you see that rifle, it has a very big scope. I will use that rifle to have you shot in the legs so you will be limped but I will not kill you. You better think of your decision.”
The Ombudsman also ordered Dumagan be suspended for six months for simple misconduct and conduct unbecoming of a public official.
