By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga
Four personnel of the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist (OPA) involved in a drinking binge while on official travel last year were dismissed from service.
Negros Occidental Provincial Legal Officer Atty. Alberto Nellas, Jr. said the three OPA personnel have already received their dismissal order, which took effect last Tuesday, January 3.
The fourth OPA employee is currently suspended due to a separate administrative complaint, and will receive his order soon.
The dismissed were identified as OPA personnel German Abihay, Ramelo Letran, Rezin Palacios, and project development assistant Maria Luisa Abano.
Nellas said they can still appeal their dismissal order through the Civil Service Commission.
However, since the order was “final and executory,” they will no longer be allowed to work in the provincial government.
Aside from dismissal from service, the four will also be penalized with the forfeiture of their retirement benefits, cancellation of eligibility, perpetual disqualification from holding public office, and barring them from taking civil service examinations.
Meanwhile, Engineer Jimbo Garsula, the fifth employee in the case, was under formal investigation, Nellas said.
Previously, the five OPA personnel were slapped with a 60-day preventive suspension following their alleged drinking binge during an “official travel” in the province’s Victorias City in July last year.
According to the complaint filed by a driver of the provincial government, by 8:00 p.m. on that date, he claimed that the OPA employees failed to show up for their return trip to Bacolod City.
It was later discovered that they were in a drinking session inside a restaurant.
One of them allegedly threw expletives against the driver after they were told they needed to return to Bacolod.
After being slapped with show cause orders, one of them replied that it was “an insult to refuse the hospitality of the counterpart of an agriculturist of Victorias.”
Nellas said the incident should serve as an example to all employees of the provincial government not to be abusive.
“That should also correspond nga dapat maayo man ang serbisyo [naton] eh kag ang ubra ta,” Nellas said./DGB, WDJ