This is an administrative case against Honorable Pedro R. Arteche, provincial governor of Samar, for various acts of oppression and misconduct in office in which the former Secretary of the Interior submitted the following findings:

œ* * * this Department concurs in the findings of the special investigator that the respondent is guilty of systematic persecution, extravagance in the use of Government funds, irregularities in the management of the provincial jail, and holding sessions of the provincial board without notice to member Vicente A. Dira. 

In the face of these findings which convict Governor Arteche of repeated acts of abuse of authority in a systematic persecution of his political enemies and other equally serious offenses, as extravagance in the use of public funds, mismanagement of the provincial jail, and deliberately planning management of the provincial jail, and deliberately planning to deprive provincial board member Vicente A. Dira of his right to attend sessions of the provincial board, it was the opinion of the said former Secretary of the Interior that because the offending official is elective he should be treated with more leniency than if he were an appointive official, and therefore recommended that Governor Arteche be publicly reprimanded instead of imposing a more drastic punishment.

This Office was unable to subscribe to the theory implied in the recommendation of Secretary Sison that there is one standard of public conduct and sense of duty for appointive officials and another for the elective. The case was therefore sent back to the Department of the Interior for further study and recommendation. The present Secretary of the Interior is of the opinion that Governor Arteche should be suspended for one month and therefore so recommends.

While the case was still in the hands of Secretary Quirino, I visited Samar and had occasion to confer with some of the complainants as well as with the respondent governor and I have come to the conclusion that the findings of the investigator of the Department of the Interior concurred in by Secretary Sison and Secretary Quirino were in accordance with the facts in the case.

Abuse of authority is a very serious fault in any public official, whether appointive or elective, and the higher the authority, power, and position of the offending official the greater the fault. Particularly should this Government be rigid with offenders of this sort, because we are in the early days of self-government and toleration of this kind of offense on the part of public officials by the Chief Executive may have serious consequences in the future. I am, therefore, in full agreement with the recommendation of the Honorable Elpidio Quirino, Secretary of the Interior.

I hereby order the suspension of Honorable Pedro R. Arteche from the office of governor of Samar for a period of one month, effective immediately, and hereby warn him that a repetition of this offense will subject him to removal from office.

Done at the City of Manila, this twenty-fourth day of June, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, and of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, the first.