ADMINISTRATIVE ORDER NO. 110, March 15, 1955

EXONERATING MR. ARSENIO H. LACSON, MAYOR OF THE CITY OF MANILA.

This is an administrative case against Mr. Arsenio H. Lacson, Mayor of the City of Manila, for alleged dishonesty, serious oppression, and grave misconduct in office, consisting of fourteen (14) specific accusations.

In its report dated January 31, 1955, the committee created to investigate the said charges stated that the same have not been satisfactorily proved, and therefore recommended the exoneration of the respondent.

After carefully going over the records of the case, I find that the recommendation of the said committee is well-grounded.

Wherefore, Mayor Arsenio H. Lacson is hereby exonerated from the aforementioned charges against him.

I deem it necessary, however, to call the attention of the respondent to the observation made by the committee with respect to the disbursement of his discretionary fund that although no malversation was committed by him, he “should have adopted a stricter procedure in approving statements of actual expenses and in supervising disbursements from his discretionary fund”. Likewise, although there has been no proof of bad faith on the part of the respondent nor showing that the city has been prejudiced when the office supplies which he purchased from Gestetner Limited when he was still a member of Congress were transferred to and paid for by the city government after his assumption of office, I wish to call his attention to the observation made by the Secretary of Justice that it is hardly possible that Sofronio Nuñez, Technical Assistant in the Mayor’s Office, did not apprise his chief of the transfer of the articles and of the account before or after the transfer was effected from the respondent’s house to the City Hall, “considering the delicate nature of these steps; considering that the supplies were in the Mayor’s residence and were his personal property; and considering further that Mr. Nuñez, it may be assumed, was working during all or most of the office hours in the office of the Mayor”.

Done in the City of Manila, this 15th day of March, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and fifty-five, and of the Independence of the Philippines, the ninth.

(Sgd.) RAMON MAGSAYSAY

President of the Philippines

By the President:

(Sgd.) FRED RUIZ CASTRO

Executive Secretary