V-guv Lim, 8 SP members charged

The Zest Air imbroglio that led City Mayor Dan Neri Lim at the receiving end of an ugly episode on cyberspace has developed a new twist with nine members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan including their presiding officer V-Gov. Concepcion Lim facing anti-graft cases. Just being true to his earlier pronouncement, Mayor Lim filed a graft case against Vice Gov. Lim and eight members of the SP who passed a resolution requesting Department of Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo to investigate the mayor in relation to the controversial incident inside a Zest Air plane last year. In his complaint addressed to Ombudsman Deputy for the Visayas Pelagio Apostol, Lim accused SP members Dionisio Balite, Cesar Tomas Lopez, Abeleon Damalerio, Godofreda Tirol, Venzencio Arcamo, Romulo Cepedoza, Crispina Vergara and Doxson Asoy of conspiring and confederating with each other to cause undue injury against him in violation of paragraph (e), section 3 of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act when they committed gross ignorance of the law, grave abuse of authority and malicious persecution.

Lim said the resolution was passed “not in reaction to complaint or reaction as is the norm but only with the obvious intention of putting (him) in shame and ill repute”. “It gives a semblance of validity to news reports emanating from polluted sources attributing acts to the undersigned that he vehemently denies,” the mayor said. As proof that he is the aggrieved party and not the aggressor, Lim said he filed a case for grave slander before the Office of the City Prosecutor in Pasay City to reclaim whatever is left of his dignity and honor as a consequence of the said malicious and unfounded allegation. Lim said the text of the resolution does not explicitly mention any supposed act that constitutes irregularity or anomaly that would warrant a full-blown investigation by no less than Robredo himself. He claimed that this inability to specify the alleged acts that necessitated the request for inquiry “itself proves their own doubts if not inability to substantiate their allegations about the supposed incident”. “Is this how responsible lawmakers conduct themselves? Is there a law that gives them the authority to indiscriminately imply wrongdoing but this time clothed with the mantle of legislative approval?” the mayor asked.

He said that in the absence of any law that allows them to seek an investigation on any public official for unspecified acts that warrant the said investigation and resolution, Lim said the SP members committed gross ignorance of the law. Lim accused the SP members of grave abuse of authority when they requested the inquiry on a very flimsy excuse of “serious concern”. “Since when has serious concern, whatever that means, been reason enough for any public official to cause the passage of a legislative measure that virtually implies wrongdoing and improper acts on a fellow government official?” the mayor asked. Lim noted that prior to the approval of the said resolution, DILG Provincial Director Loisella Lucino manifested that “no administrative case can be filed against the Mayor since the alleged act is not in relation to his official function”. The mayor said the resolution shows a clear intention to put him in a negative and bad light since any public servant being investigated is automatically placed in a bad light.

“The intention to do just that is evident because the Resolution was hastily approved instead of being referred to a particular committee that would determine if it was sufficient in form and substance,” the complaint pointed out. Lim said the board members chose to throw all caution to the wind by rushing with the resolution one week after the alleged incident happened and two days before Christmas when people normally ease up on their tensions clearly violated the law “since they caused not only undue injury but more so irreparable harm to me, my family and my constituents”. Lim said that to show proof that he has nothing to hide and is not afraid to face any investigation, he immediately sent an official communication to Robredo humbly submitting himself to the said investigation. The mayor added a “disturbing but significant piece of information” that while the resolution was passed just a week after the alleged incident took place, he had to wait for two weeks before he can get hold of a copy of the said resolution. Lim said it is open knowledge that he is politically at odds with Gov. Edgar Chatto and Rep. Rene Relampagos whose allies dominate the SP.

“Needless to say, to them the undersigned is a political nemesis that must be destroyed at all cost,” he added. Lim said there is now way that he can ever recover from the moral damage inflicted on him but the damage inflicted by the SP resolution is “an open wound” that he will take to his grave. “We cannot prevent private citizens from ascribing wrongdoing where there is none but it is a different thing when it is the very people entrusted with sacred trust who do so in the official discharge of their function,” he concluded.