BACOLOD City — Thirty-three regular employees, including the Assistant Head of the General Services Office (GSO), are facing administrative charges over the alleged mass falsification of payslips and Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) loan documents.
City Legal Officer Atty. Karol Joseph Chiu said that of the 33 personnel, 32 are facing one count each of falsification, serious dishonesty, grave misconduct, and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service.
The Assistant Department Head, whose name is being withheld pending comment, is facing 32 counts of serious dishonesty, falsification of official documents, serious misconduct, and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service.
The charges have been filed before the Office of the City Mayor.
Atty. Chiu said that on December 10, Mayor Greg Gasataya ordered the preventive suspension of the Assistant Department Head in connection with the case. The suspension took effect on December 11 and will last for 60 days.
He clarified that preventive suspension is not a penalty and does not count toward any future suspension that may be imposed if the employee is found administratively liable. Under Rule 7 of the 2025 Rules on Administrative Cases in the Civil Service (RACCS), preventive suspension is a precautionary measure to remove a respondent from the scene of the alleged misfeasance while the case is being investigated.
A preventive suspension order may be issued immediately after a valid formal charge if: (a) the charge involves serious or dismissal-level offenses, and (b) the respondent is in a position to exert undue influence on witnesses or tamper with evidence.
The alleged mass falsification was discovered after Gilda Lluisma, General Services Officer, submitted an incident report. She stated that on November 12, she inquired with the Management Information Technology and Computer Services (MITCS) office whether their payroll had a final draft, as she had signed a draft payroll the previous week for submission to MITCS for processing.
She was informed that there were problems, as many employees had negative or no balances in their net pay. It was then that she discovered that several employees had allegedly tampered with their payslips to avail themselves of GSIS loans, Atty. Chiu told the media./PN
