Arroyo orders probe against Raul Rocco

President Gloria Arroyo has ordered an investigation against Education Secretary Raul Roco amid allegations of early politicking ahead of the 2004 presidential elections.

Arroyo endorsed the investigation by the presidential anti-graft commission (PAGC) of a case against Roco filed by an employees' union at the department of education.

The Central Office Employees Union questioned Roco's decision to print 200,000 copies of posters containing his portrait, to be given to 48,000 public schools nationwide.

The union accused Roco of premature politicking with his decision to print 152,000 extra copies of the poster.

The group also protested Roco's hiring of several consultants for the department and claimed that his management style tended to humiliate subordinates.

Apart from the posters, the education employees also complained about Roco's alleged failure to remit to the national treasury service fees from the education department's funds from January to June, 2002, amounting to P15 million ($300,000) a month.

The probe into allegations of graft against Roco, a former senator, comes on the heels of an independent survey that placed him as a front-runner for the post of president.

Roco ran in the 1998 presidential elections, but lost.