Aklan mayor suspended for immorality

MANILA, Philippines - The Office of the Ombudsman has ordered the suspension for six months of the mayor of a town in Aklan over his alleged extramarital affairs.

In a decision recently signed by Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, Altavas Mayor Denny Refol was found guilty of disgraceful and immoral conduct.

A report of the National Bureau of Investigation-Western Visayas said Refol’s illicit relationship ”has gained public knowledge in the municipality because respondent publicly displayed the same.”

The Ombudsman-Visayas public assistance and corruption prevention office initiated a fact-finding investigation after receiving an anonymous complaint. It also obtained a birth certificate showing Refol acknowledged paternity of a child born in 2007.

The ombudsman dismissed Refol’s claim that the complaint is moot because he had stopped seeing his mistress. The court also rejected Refol’s defense that only a few public officials have no mistresses.

“The respondent has not denied the relationship despite the subsistence of his marriage or the fact that he has fathered a child with the woman,” the ombudsman resolution read.

Morales directed the Department of the Interior and Local Government to implement the suspension order.