AFTER INTERNAL conflicts halted its regular operations and catalyzed the restructuring of its Editorial Board (EB) last academic year, Matanglawin Ateneo, along with the Office of Student Activities (OSA), is proceeding with caution as the publication recovers from allegations of swindled funds against former AY 2018-2019 Treasurer Paco Rivera.

Following the removal of Rivera from his position upon discovering that he was not an officially enrolled student at that time, former Editor-in-Chief (EIC) Gerald John Guillermo filed a leave of absence (LOA) from Matanglawin to distance himself from the investigation. This prompted the remaining EB members to appoint Celine Natividad and Jessica Gayo as Finance Officer and Officer-in-Charge, respectively in October 2018. 

With the help of OSA, the new AY 2018-2019 EB launched an investigation into Rivera’s suspicious financial statements, prompting a disciplinary case against him. 

Meanwhile, Matanglawin is back on track with the recent release of their first regular issue since 2018.

“Suspicious” reimbursements 

Natividad explained that the EB first found out that Rivera was not enrolled for AY 2018-2019 after they went to claim Matanglawin’s remaining press passes from OSA, which required the office’s signature. For OSA to sign these passes, there must be confirmation of the student’s enrollment for the semester. 

However, after checking with the Registrar in the middle of September 2018, it was revealed that Rivera was not enrolled for the semester, signifying that he was not eligible to be part of the Matanglawin EB or any other organization. After contacting Rivera about this discovery, Gayo said that Rivera announced his intention to file a leave of absence from Matanglawin for reasons unspecified. 

According to OSA Coordinator for Culture and Gender Development Neil Reyes, the Matanglawin EB approached OSA to discuss the matter in the same month, also claiming to have found “suspicious” reimbursements dating back to May 2018. Natividad said that Rivera allegedly submitted acknowledgement slips to OSA, along with a list of participants involving both members and non-members of Matanglawin, to reimburse coverages that never happened.

She said that Guillermo approached her in August 2018 about spotting inconsistencies in Rivera’s reimbursement forms, but he failed to confront Rivera on the issue despite Natividad’s advice. 

“‘Yung problem namin is bakit sinign ni Gerald ‘yung mga dokumento kung nakita nga niya na hindi naman tayo nag-cover ng ganito (Our problem has to do with why Gerald signed those documents even though he knew that we never covered those events),” Natividad said. 

After several consultations with OSA, the remaining EB members decided to file a disciplinary case against Rivera. 

Upholding accountability 

In order to distance himself from the ongoing investigation, Guillermo filed his LOA from the publication and appointed then Associate Editor Carl Nebres as the Officer-in-Charge for the EIC position. However, Nebres declined the position, prompting the EB’s appointment of Gayo as EIC without Guillermo’s consultation.

According to Guillermo, the Matanglawin Constitution states that the only way to remove someone from office is through impeachment. However, he was not informed of the sudden decision to restructure the EB: “[I wasn’t able to] defend myself through any deliberative committee. It was a unilateral action from the EB to remove me from office.” 

Furthermore, he shared that the memorandum Matanglawin released on October 5 was “misleading” as to how he was involved in the investigation.

“What it sounded to me when I read [the memorandum] was that I was with Paco Rivera all throughout the process…[that] the actions of my finance officer were the same as my actions,” Guillermo said in an interview with The GUIDON in March 2019. “Throughout the process, I felt that it was me guilty before proving myself innocent.”

On the other hand, Reyes emphasized the need to realize the gravity of organizational heads’ signatures when going through documents that require thorough attention: “When both their signatures are there, we trust that they’ve already looked through and validated the information there.”

Reyes further explained that in signing the forms, the “objective stance is that the reimbursement forms would be vetted through [Guillermo].”

Disciplinary sanctions

To begin the investigation, an ad hoc fact-finding committee was convened by OSA to look into the facts of Rivera’s case. Reyes explained that after the facts were gathered and checked, the findings were then forwarded to the Office of Discipline (OD). Quiblat added that, at that point, OSA had no part in the decision-making as it is entirely up to OD’s discretion to decide if the issue “merits a case or not.” 

Reyes stated that once OSA’s investigation began, Matanglawin’s publication funds had to be temporarily frozen until certain documents were submitted to OSA. According to Natividad, the freezing of funds halted the production of regular issues for the last school year: “Wala kaming nailabas na output since first semester [of AY 2018-2019] (We weren’t able to release any output since the first semester of AY 2018-2019).” 

Although Rivera is no longer enrolled in the University, OSA Director Ralph Jacinto Quiblat explained that having pending cases would put his documents such as the Certificate of Good Moral Character and Transcript of Records on hold. The Certificate of Good Moral Character entails that a person has not been subjected to any school violations. Such a certificate is usually issued to the student upon the request of universities or employers.

“[If] the [Office of Student Services] (OSS) finds that a student is guilty, sanctions would be given, [but] the student is not enrolled. [Since the] prescribed sanctions could not be given to that student, all his documents will be held by OSS,” Reyes explained.

“Ang challenge lang is hindi siya mapipilitan to appear [in disciplinary court since] hindi naman siya enrolled (The challenge is that he won’t be required to appear [in disciplinary court since] he’s not enrolled). It’s really his decision,” Reyes said. 

Should Rivera fail to show up in disciplinary court, Quiblat said it would “be to his disadvantage [because] that’s him surrendering his right to [defend himself].”

OSA said that no further information about the investigation, such as the alleged amount swindled, can be disclosed to the public, given the non-disclosure agreements signed for the case and the Data Privacy Act (DPA) of 2012. In June 2019, OD also declined to disclose any information as the case was ongoing at that time. 

In October 2019, Reyes added that a series of internal hearings on Rivera’s case was still ongoing. Resource persons from OSA and the Central Accounting Office were asked to be present as they are involved in the approval of reimbursement forms. 

Overall, Quiblat reassured that the offices involved are “proceeding with caution” in investigating Rivera’s case, given the nature of Matanglawin as a news agency. 

Associate Dean for Student Formation Leland Dela Cruz, PhD declined to give information about the case proceedings due to DPA considerations. Furthermore, in April 2020, OD Director Carolyn P. Natividad, PhD said that the OD cannot comment on the case given existing privacy laws and University policy. The GUIDON has also reached out to Rivera for any updates about his case, but he has yet to respond to requests for an interview. 

Moving forward

In the meantime, Quiblat said the ad hoc committee recommended “certain safeguards” for Matanglawin to implement such as rectifying organizational matters before proceeding to normal operations. 

This internal overhaul included the organization’s financial procedures, code of ethics, constitution, and code of internal procedures.

“We asked Matanglawin to fix their organizational set-up,” he said. “I think if there were clear protocols sa organizational procedures, maiiwasan siguro ang problema (I think if there were clear protocols in organizational procedures, problems could have been avoided).”

Because of the publication’s lack of output for AY 2018-2019, Matanglawin EIC for AY 2019-2020 Caila Noche revealed that the number of members and readership has “significantly diminished.”

Noche said that this loss of member engagement prompted them to focus on activities, workshops, and online coverages instead of regular issues in order to foster the skills of its new members. Matanglawin releases an average of four to six issues per year, which she hopes the publication can achieve by AY 2020-2021. 

Although it has been over a year since the issue surfaced, she mentioned that the publication has been taking steps to ensure transparency and improve financial procedures in order to deter last school year’s turn of events from happening again. 

“We’ve been transparent with the members regarding what has happened,” she said. “Ultimately, [we] have become very strict regarding our financial procedures, particularly our processes with reimbursement.” 

Despite still undergoing the aftermath of the internal complications, the publication was finally able to release a backlogged issue entitled Tanganglawin in September 2019. The issue, which was written in AY 2018-2019, was never published due to Matanglawin’s frozen funds. 

As of February 9, Matanglawin successfully circulated their January 2020 issue—their first regular release since April 2018—entitled Paghawan ng mga Pakiwari around campus. 

Editor’s note: The article has been updated with the OD’s response to The GUIDON’s request for an interview regarding Rivera’s case.

With reports from Kirsten T. Angeles, Billie Asuncion, and Margarita C. Gonzalez.