North Cotabato Governor Nancy Catamco said Friday she will abide by the order of the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan, suspending her for 90-day for corruption charges.
At 4 p.m. Thursday, the Provincial Legal Office received the suspension order served by the Department of the Interior and Local Government-Region 12.
“Being a part of the legal process, I have to follow and abide by it (order). I have to face this,” Catamco said in a press conference at the AJ Hi-Time Hotel in Kidapawan City.
The Sandiganbayan 6th Division suspended Catamco, along with her former husband Pompey Perez and former Poro, Cebu Mayor Edgar Rama, in connection with the PHP5-million fertilizer fund scam that included her as among the respondents in the 2004 case.
Catamco, then the representative of the 2nd district of North Cotabato, and Perez allegedly collaborated with Rama for the purchase of 3,333 bottles of overpriced Vitacrop liquid fertilizer valued at PHP4.8-million.
The markup price per Vitacrop bottle was pegged at PHP1, 092 each.
“What is happening right now pains me but it is the law,” the governor said, referring to her suspension.
She said the suspension could delay her development plans for the province but that she has instructed Capitol officials to continue working on the lined up programs.
She said these programs include the increase in salaries of job order employees in the local health sector, filling up of vacant medical worker positions in the district and provincial hospitals, the upgrading of provincial health facilities, and several road projects.
Catamco said she is also looking forward to the operation of the mothballed provincial airport in M’lang town.
“We all want that (M’lang) airport operational soon,” she said.
She said during her temporary absence, Vice Governor Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza will take care of the affairs of the province.
Asked on what she would do during the three-month suspension, she said “That is a secret and you would surely miss me”. (PNA)
