Sandiganbayan defers arraignment of ex-Iloilo Gov. Tupas Sr. for graft case

The Sandiganbayan Fifth Division has granted the request of former Iloilo governor Niel Tupas Sr. to defer his arraignment for a graft case until his health condition improves.

During Tupas’ scheduled arraignment on Wednesday, Fifth Division chairman Associate Justice Roland Jurado said the court granted Tupas’ request for “humanitarian considerations.”

In his motion submitted to the court Thursday last week, Tupas, through his legal counsel Joenar Pueblo, requested that his arraignment be held in abeyance as he is still unfit to travel to Metro Manila following his recent hospitalization due heart ailment.

Tupas informed the court that he was confined at St. Paul’s Hospital in Iloilo City from October 10 to 13.

Based on a medical certificate attached in the motion, the 82-year-old former governor was diagnosed with coronary artery disease, hypertensive cardiovascular disease and secondary pancytopenia or the reduction of red and white blood cells as well as platelets.

Tupas’ attending physician Dr. Louie Tirador certified that the patient is unfit to travel due to “immunocompromised state” and risk of bleeding due to low platelet counts.

The court, meanwhile, has set the tentative date of Tupas’ arraignment on November 12 to coincide with the arraignment of his three co-accused, granted that his condition has already improved by that time.

The graft case against Tupas stemmed from the alleged anomalous payment of a private company for the provincial government’s unconsummated electricity worth P4 million.

Also named respondents in the case were Iloilo provincial accountant Lyd Tupas, assistant department head of the office of the provincial accountant Sandra Bionat, and general services department head Ramie Salcedo

In a complaint filed with the Sandiganbayan early last month, the Ombudsman said Tupas and the other respondents acted in conspiracy to give “unwarranted benefit, advantage and preference” to the private company Green Core Geothermal, Inc. by approving the release of a total of P4,007,111.91 to the company from December 2009 to April 2010.

The payment made to Green Core was for the supposed electricity supply to facilitate the construction of the Iloilo Multi-Purpose Convention Center.

The Ombudsman said that while the construction of the convention center did not push through, the provincial government still paid Green Core a total of P5.88 million for the billing period of December 2009 to April 2010, even when the actual electricity consumption of the province for that period only amounted to P1.88 million.

Tupas Sr. is the father of incumbent Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas Jr. —KBK, GMA News