Rama found guilty of grave abuse

Local

FORMER Cebu City mayor Michael Rama and City Assessor Maria Theresa Rosell have been found guilty of oppression or grave abuse of authority.

The Office of the Ombudsman described their act as a “cruel and excessive” reassignment of four city employees.

In a 28-page decision dated Sept. 1, 2025, the Ombudsman’s Special Panel of Investigators ruled that the two officials went beyond their powers when they transferred regular employees from the City Assessor’s Office to other posts “without valid grounds,” stripped them of pay, and left them idle without clear duties.

Rama and Rosell were each meted a one-year suspension —the maximum penalty for the offense.

But since Rama is no longer in office after losing the May 2025 elections and being earlier dismissed in another case, his penalty will instead be converted into a fine equivalent to six months’ salary, payable to the Ombudsman.

“If the penalty of suspension can no longer be served due to respondents’ separation from the service, the same shall be converted into a fine equivalent to respondents’ salary for six months,” the ruling stated.

The case stemmed from a complaint filed on February 23, 2024, by City Assessor’s Office employees Filomena Atuel, Maria Almicar Diongzon, Sybil Ann Ybañez, and Chito Dela Cerna.

They accused Rama and Rosell of grave misconduct, oppression, and abuse of authority for their reassignment in mid-2023, which the Civil Service Commission (CSC) Regional Office VII had already declared “invalid and without legal effect.”

According to the Ombudsman, the employees were “removed from payroll, denied salaries and benefits, and subjected to surveillance” while being given no definite duties.

“The circumstances of being dropped from the list of employees for payroll, withholding of salaries and other benefits, and being made to sit at the office without work are indicia of an invalid reassignment—a far cry from being regular and made in the exigency of public service,” the decision read.

The panel dismissed Rama’s defense that the transfers were an exercise of management prerogative, calling it “self-serving and off-tangent.”

Rosell was also faulted for issuing a directive in October 2023 barring the reassigned employees from following up transactions at the Assessor’s Office.

The Ombudsman said Memorandum No. 2023-081-MTR was “highly suspicious,” since it came after the affected employees had already returned to work and filed complaints before the CSC, Ombudsman, DILG, BLGF, and ARTA.

“The contents thereof, which specifically targeted complainants, constitute oppression, defined as any act of cruelty, severity, unlawful exaction, domination, or excessive use of authority,” the Ombudsman ruled.

The panel called the memo “unfair and unreasonable,” saying it was issued in bad faith and effectively barred the complainants from performing their duties.

Under the 2017 Rules on Administrative Cases in the Civil Service, oppression is punishable by suspension of six months and one day to one year for a first offense, and dismissal for a second.

Because both Rama and Rosell were found guilty of four counts of the same offense, the Ombudsman imposed the maximum one-year suspension each.

Six other officials, including City Administrator Collin Rosell, Assistant Department Heads Francis May Jacaban and Angelique Cabugao, Administrative Division Head Jay-Ar Pescante, Records Head Lester Joey Beniga, and Computer Division Head Nelyn Sanrojo, were cleared for lack of substantial evidence.

This ruling marks another setback for Rama, who was preventively suspended in May 2024 over the same reassignment issue. Months later, in October 2024, he was dismissed from office in a separate case for grave misconduct and abuse of authority.

His motion for reconsideration was denied in early 2025.

Rama, who lost to then-Councilor Nestor Archival in the May 2025 elections, has yet to issue a statement regarding the latest Ombudsman ruling as of press time.

Rosell, meanwhile, is no longer in office.(TGP)