MANILA — The Office of the Ombudsman has placed National Irrigation Authority (NIA) Administrator Benny Antiporda under preventive suspension for 6 months without pay following complaints from the agency's workers.

The office found Antiporda's guilt strong on the administrative complaints which included grave misconduct, conduct prejudicial to the best interest of service, and oppression.

According to the Ombudsman, Antiporda was displeased when NIA lawyers opined that the most senior officer of NIA was Ricardo Visaya and that he should retain his post as administrator.

Antiporda also allegedly asked NIA members to drop the term "acting" from his designation as acting administrator. This allegedly caused Antiporda to retaliate at employees by preventing them from travelling.

He supposedly publicly humiliated some employees, reassigned them without basis, and threatened not to renew appointments of some workers who fixed the air-conditioning unit of his residence but could not finish the job at once.

WORKERS' GRIPES

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NIA Corporate Secretary Atty. Michelle Raymundo, one of the the complainants, said she had raised concern on Antiporda's bid to modify his designation so that he could become "in his words, ‘full-fledged’ administrator."

"I said, that might be a problem because your appointment papers say something else,” Raymundo told ANC's "Rundown" on Wednesday.

"And I do not think--personally and actually upon consultation with several other lawyers--that the board can modify the appointment that was given to him by the President himself... Only the President himself can modify the appointment and remove the term ‘acting’ from said appointment," she added.

Raymundo said board members disregarded her advice and instead voted to modify Antiporda's appointment. But she said Antiporda seemed "angry" at her after their meeting and "started issuing orders designed to harass me."

"He removed my janitress, he started turning off the electricity in my office, and then he ordered my office to begin locking, shutting down at 5 p.m., when in NIA, we were operating under a flexi time arrangement," she said.

Raymundo also alleged that Antiporda made it a policy that all documents coming to and from her office must pass through his first.

"And then, one day while I was at a meeting, I was informed I would not be allowed to enter my office anymore. And indeed that happened, there was one day where I arrived at the office and then the office remained padlocked throughout the day. Apparently the person who had the key to the padlock could not be found," Raymundo said.

"After that, I just left the office and went on leave," she said.

She said Antiporda also placed several managers on "floating status."

PROMPTED BY CLEANSING?

Antiporda confirmed his suspension to ABS-CBN News, which he said was effective immediately.

He said his office was padlocked to prevent him from having access to it.

However, he claimed the complaint against him was prompted by the "cleansing" he initiated in NIA.

"If this is the price I have to pay for fighting corruption, then so be it. Tanggap natin 'yan (we accept that), and at the same time, these are petty allegations," he alleged.

Raymundo rejected this, saying "I have not received a centavo of money or received any favor that is not in accordance with what my job entails."