BAGUIO MARKET EMPLOYEES SUED IN “KWARTAIS” SCANDAL HIKES TO 14

October 2, 2022 Headlines

BAGUIO CITY – Three more employees of the Baguio City government assigned at the public market as collectors of arrival fees or ‘kwartais’ were charged with malversation with falsification of public documents and falsification by public officers, jumping to 14 sued in the multimillion scandal that accordingly had been going on for decades. Three other employees who were sued earlier were again included in the latest suit
for additional counts of malversation and falsification of public documents.

The latest case was filed on September 16, 2022 before the Office of the City Prosecutor by City Market Division officer-incharge Marieta C. Alvarez on behalf of the city government together with the Baguio City
Police Office as investigators of the cases. The malversation and falsification raps stemmed from the discovery of tampered duplicate receipts on arrival fees collected from city market merchants that further resulted to the uncovering of more falsified receipts involving more employees who are now respondents to the cases.

“Ms. Marieta C. Alvarez discovered the tampering of duplicate copies of receipts being committed by deployed Revenue Collector Clerks II, when they did not remit the exact amount being paid by merchants/traders by declaring the wrong amount of payment on the duplicate copies of the official receipts,” the report of Police Lieutenant Colonel Pablo Emmanuel Nead, chief of the BCPO-Crime Investigation and Detection Management Unit (CIDMU) noted.

The city government through the initiative of Mayor Benjamin Magalong started the investigation and filing of court cases against its employees found allegedly involved in malversation and falsification of public
documents as early as July this year. The mayor hopes to stop what he called a practice of ‘syndicated corruption’ involving city market employees and merchants leading to embezzlement of public funds.
Magalong counting all the years this fraudulence has been happening, the city’s loss in revenues is pegged over P50 million.

Artemio A. Dumlao/ABN