WHO SAID THAT THIS GOVT IS JOKING ON ITS BATTLE AGAINST GRAFT AND CORRUPTION??? 👍 **************************** Sarangani board members get life sentences for malversation January 30, 2014 6:06pm Tags: Bantay Kaban , Sandiganbayan The Sandiganbayan anti-graft court has sentenced nine provincial officials of Sarangani Province—including two incumbent members of the provincial board—to life terms for misappropriating P475,000 in government funds in 2002. The Sandiganbayan First Division has convicted incumbent Sangguniang Panlalawigan members Cornelio Martinez Jr. and Eugene Alzate for malversation of public funds. The two officials ran and won under the Peoples Champ Movement, a local political party that Sarangani Rep. Pacquiao organized in 2009. Also convicted were former provincial board members Lelibeth Canillo-Prospero, Hernando Sibugan, Juanito Purisima, Marlind Marcelo, Redempto Abiso, and Jesus Desedilla, and former executive assistant Amelia Constantino-Zoleta. Aside from life imprisonment, they have each been ordered to pay a fine of P475,000 and to jointly indemnify Sarangani province in the sum of P475,000. The anti-graft court has also imposed a further penalty of perpetual disqualification from public service. According to the decision penned by Associate Justice Efren de la Cruz, division chairman, the court gave credence to the eyewitness testimony of Mary Ann Gadian, a computer operator assigned to the office of the late vice governor Felipe Constantino. Gadian testified that she was made “to make fictitious transactions in order to get money from the government.” She said that for the questioned transaction, the defendants told her to use dirty tricks in April 2002 to produce P20,000 for each of them for a trip to Manila. Gadian said she made it appear that P475,000 would go to a certain Sea Angels Aqua Marketing Cooperative (SAAMC) as requested by supposed chairman Wenilo Bravo for a “bagoong-making venture.” She said neither Bravo nor the cooperative he supposedly headed existed. “The Court subjected Gadian and her testimony [to] close scrutiny, and found that she was a credible witness, and that her testimony was credible in itself,” the court declared. Gadian was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying, but the court said her testimony was credible because she could have chosen other persons and still avail of immunity, and not a bunch of persons who were in power. — JDS, GMA News Tags: Bantay Kaban , Sandiganbayan
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 11:56:07 +0000