CSC rules on dishonesty in gov\'t service, out Category: feature Source: The Bikol Reporter

The Civil Service Commission (CSC) has issued new rules on classifying dishonesty in the government service into serious, less serious and simple administrative offense.

Dishonesty in the government service was previously classified as a grave offense punishable with dismissal from the service even on the first offense.

CSC Bicol regional director Cecilia R. Nieto said the need to classify the offense of dishonesty is in fair consideration of some dishonest acts that are not constitutive of an offense so grave to warrant the imposition of dismissal from the service.

According to Nieto a number of CSC decisions imposing dismissal from the service for dishonesty have been modified by the Court of Appeals and even by the Supreme Court itself to that of suspension only in consideration of attendant circumstances.

The new rules on classifying the offense of dishonesty as contained in CSC Resolution No. 060538 spell out parameters that would guide disciplining authorities, especially the heads of agencies, in charging the proper offense.

The offense of serious dishonesty under the new rules would involve the presence of any one of the following attendant circumstances: a) the dishonest act caused serious damage and grave prejudice to the government; b) the respondent gravely abused his authority in order to commit the dishonest act; c) the respondent is an accountable officer, the dishonest act directly involves property, accountable forms or money for which he is directly and shows intent to commit material gain, graft and corruption; d) dishonest act exhibits moral depravity on the part of the respondent; e) the respondent employed fraud or falsified is not related to employment in case of falsification of official documents, would make up for Simple Dishonesty.

Simple Dishonesty, according to Nieto is punishable by suspension from one month and one day to six months on first offense, and from six months and one day to one year on second offense. On third offense, however, simple dishonesty is punishable by dismissal from the service.

For Less Serious Dishonesty, the penalties include suspension from six months to one year on first offense, and dismissal from the service on second offense.

Nieto emphasized that the rules on dishonesty shall not apply to those cases which were already decided with finality prior to the effectivity of CSC Resolution No. 061009.
All pending dishonesty cases or those filed within three years after its effectivity shall be labeled as Serious Dishonesty which is, however, without prejudice to the finding of the proper offense after termination of the investigation, Nieto said. - (MLBaduria)