The Office of the Ombudsman has ordered the six-month preventive suspension without pay of Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Undersecretary for E-Government David L. Almirol Jr. over alleged conflicts of interest involving government contracts worth about P1.55 billion.
In a seven-page order issued Wednesday, the Ombudsman found sufficient grounds to suspend Almirol while administrative complaints against him are being resolved. The charges include grave misconduct, conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service, and violation of Republic Act 6713, or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees.
The suspension order is immediately executory and will remain in effect until the administrative adjudication is terminated.
The Ombudsman said Almirol’s continued presence in office could prejudice the investigation because he has control and custody of documents and other evidence relevant to the case. It also cited strong evidence supporting the administrative charges.
The complaints stemmed from a June 2025 report by the DICT Internal Audit Unit that raised concerns over the hiring of former personnel of Multisys Technologies Corporation and the awarding of contracts to other companies with financial ties to the firm.
Further investigation by the Ombudsman found that the DICT awarded at least eight e-government-related contracts to companies with financial relationships with Multisys from November 2023 to May 2025, with the contracts “totaling to about PHP1.55 billion”.
The projects covered information and communications technology consultancy, e-government application deployment, web-based messaging services, cloud infrastructure, data center colocation and software subscriptions.
Almirol founded Multisys in 2010 and served as its president and chief executive officer for more than a decade before his appointment as DICT undersecretary for E-Government in August 2022. He later led the development and rollout of the eGovPH Super App.
The Ombudsman’s order also cited corporate records indicating that Almirol did not immediately divest his business interests after joining the government.
“Multisys’ General Information Sheet (GIS) notarized on 27 October 2022 and received by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on 2 November 2022 showed that respondent was still listed as a stockholder of Multisys holding 49.21 percent of the stocks,” the order noted.
The Ombudsman said this was beyond the 60-day period from his assumption of office within which Section 9 of RA 6713 required him to divest his business interests.
Multisys’ audited financial statements also reported revenue from the other companies for managed services amounting to P110.8 million in 2023 and P514.6 million in 2024, according to the order.
The order said Almirol was removed from the list of Multisys stockholders in a subsequent General Information Sheet. The provided account of the order did not specify the date of that later filing.
The preventive suspension is an administrative measure pending the resolution of the complaints and is not, by itself, a final determination of liability.
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