Abra prov’l board suspends Lagayan mayor, vice mayor

BANGUED, Abra – The Abra Provincial Board has issued a six-month suspension order on Lagayan town mayor Jendricks Luna and his wife vice mayor Joy Chrisma in connection with an alleged anomaly in a road project.

Vice governor Ronald Balao-as, with eight of the nine-member Abra provincial board, found that Luna and his wife were guilty of dishonesty and grave misconduct regarding a supposedly unfinished 1,740 meter Bai-Nagba Road in Barangay Ba-i, Lagayan worth R1,071.850 which the mayor reported as already concreted.

Last August 6, Sangguniang Bayan member Noel Cortez complained before the Abra provincial board that the road project, supposedly funded by the town’s Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA), has remained “a pebble and dirt road” despite Luna’s report that it was already completed.

The Abra provincial board summoned Luna to disprove Cortez’s allegation, and accorded him due process by asking to explain his side.

However, Luna, through his counsel, even asked the provincial board to keep its “hands off” from the investigation, while insisting that some sections of the road were already completed, and that there was no irregularity in the road construction project.

The board then asked Abra Governor Jocelyn Bernos to suspend the Lunas administratively for three months so that they could not influence any investigation into Cortez’s complaint.

On September 11, Bernos placed the couple on preventive suspension for 90 days.