Three more market employees charged with malversation over ‘kwartais’

Three more employees of the city government assigned at the City Market as collectors of arrival fees or ‘kwartais’ were charged with malversation with falsification of public documents and falsification by public officers.

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 September 16, 2022 before the Office of the City Prosecutor by City Market Division officer-in-charge 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 in 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,” reads the report of Police Lieutenant Colonel Pablo Emmanuel Nead, chief of the BCPO-Crime Investigation and Detection Management Unit (CIDMU).

The city government through the initiative of Mayor Benjamin B. 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. – JMPS