Administrative Order No. 342




MALACAÑAN PALACE MANILA BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINES [ ADMINISTRATIVE ORDER NO. 342, September 29, 1972 ] REMOVING MR. RODRIGO SALUD PROM OFFICE AS SECRETARY OF THE GAMES AND AMUSEMENTS BOARD Mr. Rodrigo Salud, Secretary of the Games and Amusements Board (GAB), together with other GAB officials, was administratively charged with certain irregularities in a complaint filed by the Philippine Racing Club, Inc. (PRCI), dated March 7, 1967, specifically, fixing of races, falsification, usurpation of functions and oppressive exercise of authority. The charges were formally investigated by the Presidential Investigating Committee (PIC) created under Administrative Order No. 50, s. 1967, which found respondent Salud guilty of undue intervention in the preparation of programs for horse races under the charge of fixing of races and of falsification. On the charge of race-fixing, whereby respondent Salud and other GAB officials allegedly altered racing programs prepared and approved by the committee on handicapping for the December 11 and 12, 1965, and June 18 and 19, 1966, horse races in order to favor horses owned by persons identified with Chairman Montano, the evidence shows that there were instances of movement of horses from one group to the next higher or lower group in the aforesaid weekend races. Said movements are permissible under the rules on handicapping. There is no evidence that the horses who won were owned by people identified with or close to respondent Montano. However, there is evidence showing that respondent Salud unduly intervened in the preparation of programs of races for said weekend races as found by the investigating committee. The pertinent portion of the committee report is quoted below; “There is evidence, however, showing that the respondents, specially Chairman Montano and Secretary Salud, had unduly intervened in the preparation of the program of the programs of races for those week-end races of December 18, and 19, 1965 and June 11 and 12, 1966. The very testimony of respondent Secretary Salud at the rehearing of the case shows that such programs were greatly the work of said respondents and not of the Committee on Handicapping or of the handicapper who under the law should prepare the program initially. According to respondent Salud the program of races for the December 11 and 12, 1965 Races was handed to him by the Committee on Handicapping after its meeting, the members of which then present being Chairman Marquez and Member Olmedo; that the members gave him ‘tips’ that certain horses were misgrouped; that he communicated those ‘tips’ to the members of the Board; that when the Chairman of the Board opened the meeting of the Board and the members of the Committee on Handicapping were called he. the Chairman, acting mainly on the tips but informing that in his long experience certain horses were misgrouped, and passing from group to group in the program he indicated the misgrouped horses and asked what they thought about then, and when they said OK then he, respondent Salud, wrote the names of such horses under the proper group. The same is true with respect to the program for the June 18 and 19, 1966 Races. Such program prepared and submitted by the Handicapper to the Committee on Handicapping was deliberated on by the latter and then submitted to the GAB for approval. When the same was returned for the preparation of the final program for release, it showed on its face the many names of horses written “by the respondents, Chairman Montano and Secretary Salud under each Race number, – sometimes the name of a horse appearing under different Race numbers.” The next charge against respondent Salud is falsification, in that he made it appear in a communication sent by him, by authority of the GAB, dated November 18, 1966, that the Office of the President on November 18, 1966, lifted the one (1) year suspension imposed by the PRCI Board of Stewards on November 14. 1966, on Jockey Geni for deliberately pulling his mount during the races on that date. In support of this charge, a certification of the Malacañang Records Officer dated February 23, 1967, was submitted in evidence attesting to the fact that no executive clemency was ever granted to said jockey relative to his suspension order of November 14, 1965. The letter signed by respondent Salud by authority of the Board, made it clear that the supposed grant of executive clemency by the office of the President was not in existence in the Office of the GAB when the sane wa3 prepared. The letter informed “that the Office of the President has motu proprio lifted the suspension,” whereas the supposed order of the Executive Office spoke of the petition and the reasons in support thereof. As the investigating committee pointed out, “if the Office of the President has lifted the suspension motu proprio, it could not have acted on the petition and the reasons in support thereof.” Moreover, the committee observed, “no attempt was ever r.ade by the respondents to prove the genuineness of the supposed order of the Office of the President [dated November 17, 1965, lifting the suspension of Jockey Geni] and of the signature of Acting Executive Secretary Salvador Mariño, put in doubt because of the Certification of the Presidential Records Officer.” The material contradiction above indicated, when viewed in the light of the certification of the Presidential Records Officer, proves the charge of falsification or at least the offense of falsely attributing to the Office of the President the grant of executive clemency motu proprio to a jockey with a record of three (3) suspensions for irregularities, an act deemed sufficient to render him unfit to remain in office. Wherefore, Mr. Rodrigo Salud is hereby removed from office as Secretary of the Games and Amusements Board, effective upon receipt of a copy of this Order.£A⩊phi£ Done in the City of Manila, this 29th day of September, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and seventy-two. (Sgd.) FERDINAND E. MARCOS President of the Philippines By the President: (Sgd.) ALEJANDRO MELCHOR Executive Secretary The Lawphil Project - Arellano Law Foundation