NAGA CITY - Crucial to the progress of filing administrative and criminal cases against the bosses of Camarines Sur II Electric Cooperative (Casureco II) -- whom the coop’s finance manager confessed to have tried to offer her P10,000 share from the release of P300,000advocacy fund,-- are witnesses and documents, the resident Ombudsman here yesterday said.

        Provincial Prosecutor Agapito Rosales showed the Bicol Mail several communications and documents submitted by several interested parties that expressed continuing intention to probe the disbursement of the P300,000 advocacy fund that Casureco II Finance Manager Jane Barrameda revealed to had been originally intended for the campaign of Association Philippine Electric Cooperative (Apec) party-list group in last month’s elections.

        Barrameda said the P300,000 advocacy fund though conforming to the legitimate budget item of the power coop, it was originally submitted to her for approval as support to the campaign of Apec party-list group.

        “It’s immoral,” she told the Bicol Mail said.

        The Apec party-list group enlists power coops all over the country its mass base including the Casureco II through the Bicol Electric Cooperative Association (Beca).

        Barrameda said she turned down the approval of the documents requesting for the disbursement of P600,000, the original request that explicitly aimed at using the fund for the Apec’s election campaign.

        She said she did not approve the first request because she said the intention was for partisan politics. She added that her decision to turn down the disbursement of the original request has been affirmed by a directive from National Electric Administration (NEA), two days after she turned down the first request.

        Barrameda said she was offered, through a call from the cell phone, a P10,000-share from the P300,000 while riding in her car home but flatly rejected it and instructed one subordinate to return the money to the coop’s coffers with receipt.

        But despite the public statements of internal coop auditor Lani Botor and Barrameda over local radio stations, the cases against concerned members of Casureco II Board of Directors and OIC General Manager Rodelo Pasumbal will not progress unless they are executed as sworn statements to stand as evidence.

        The resident Ombudsman said he hopes to be submitted to his office the transcribed statements Botor and Barrameda aired through the local radio stations.

        He said the submission of transcribed statements of two Casureco II employees would lead the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office to summon them and require them to execute sworn statements regarding the allegation of irregularity in the disbursement of the P300,000 advocacy fund.

        Rosales said that the present sets of documents submitted to him for action would not stand as evidence of allegations of irregularity in the release of the advocacy fund which was supposedly intended to “improve the image of the power coop”.

        He said that the crucial documents for the resident Ombudsman to take action on the allegations hurled at several members of the Casureco II Board of Directors and the OIC general manager are sworn statements from Barrameda and Botor and others with knowledge of the transactions.

        Rosales said the sworn statements of the two Casureco II employees and documents relative to the allegations would enable his office to investigate and take appropriate action.

        Reelected Councilor Salvador Del Castillo, a lawyer by profession, conformed with the resident Ombudsman’s opinion regarding the present documents at hand regarding the allegations of Botor and Barrameda.

        “(They’re) just a mere scrap of paper,” Del Castillo emphasized.

        He said the audit report of Botor that alleged there were irregularities in the release of the P300,000 was an internal document that the internal auditing office of the Casureco II has yet to act on.

        But the councilor said that the resident Ombudsman could summon Botor to execute sworn statement and subpoena the Casureco II officials and management to produce financial documents relative to the allegations.