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"WHAT a great blessing to receive at Christmas time!"
Thus said Bacolod City Mayor Evelio Leonardia in reaction to his belated receipt Monday [December 14] of the joint resolution approved by Ombudsman Sammuel Martires last August 6, 2019 yet, dismissing graft and administrative charges filed against him and seven other city officials.
The cases were docketed as OMB-V-C-17-0192 and OMB-V-A-17-0185 and filed by the Field Investigation Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas on the basis of a 2009 complaint of Sarah Teresa Esguerra and Othello Ramos for which the respondents were required to file their counter-affidavits only in 2017.
"This is another of the many political harassment cases that Sarah Esguerra and Othello Ramos had launched against us over the years. As well-known supporters of that former city mayor of Bacolod, we know what their motives were when they filed the complaint in 2009, before an election year," Leonardia said.