By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

The Office of the President has ordered Bacolod Mayor Evelio Leonardia to submit his response to the complaint filed against him by former executive assistant Sarah Esguerra involving the Civil Service Commission (CSC) resolution, which invalidated the appointment of late City Legal Officer (CLO) Alan Zamora.
The mayor was ordered to comply within 10 days.
Esguerra, then-executive assistant to former Mayor Monico Puentevella, filed the complaint in relation to the alleged failure by Leonardia to execute the decision of the CSC, citing the CSC resolution affirming the invalidation of Zamora’s appointment, following the denial of a motion for reconsideration.
She claimed Leonardia’s alleged defiance kept Zamora on the city payroll, creating “unauthorized disbursements” to the city and contrary to advice by the Commission on Audit (COA) to disallow payments, following the said CSC resolution.
However, Leonardia legal counsel and current CLO, Atty. Joselito Bayatan, called Esguerra’s tactic another “recycled case” filed by Puentevella against Leonardia.
He explained, the case had long been dismissed by the Ombudsman in 2007 as both administrative and criminal cases.
“This revived case would not have been filed in the first place if former Mayor Puentevella, with the use of his minion Sarah Esguerra as the complainant, properly observed the Filipino and Christian values of honoring and sanctifying the deceased person,” Bayatan asserted.
Zamora passed away in March 2009.
The case originally stemmed from an inquiry sent to the CSC questioning the validity of Zamora’s appointment after a concerned taxpayer alleged he was a resident of Bago City and not Kahirup Village, Barangay Singcang, Bacolod City, as he had claimed.
The then-CLO claimed Bacolod City was his legal residence, to which he provided a voter’s certificate showing him to be a registered voter in Bacolod City. He was under the impression the residency requirement referred to his “legal residence,” instead of his “actual residency.”/WDJ