Sandiganbayan asked to reverse dismissal of Winston Garcia's graft case

Government prosecutors have asked the Sandiganbayan to reverse its ruling dismissing the graft case against former Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) president and general manager Winston Garcia.

In a 22-page motion for reconsideration dated April 6, the Ombudsman’s Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) said the Second Division erred in its March 17, 2016, ruling dismissing the graft case against Garcia and his eight co-accused due to the alleged inordinate delay in the investigation and filing of the case.

The prosecution team said that though there may have been some delay on the part of the Ombudsman in resolving the complaint from which the graft case stemmed, such delay was not “capricious, vexatious, and prejudicial to the accused” as stated by the court in its resolution.

“The Honorable Court’s ruling that there was inordinate delay is unfounded. Mere mathematical reckoning of the time involved is not sufficient. Particular regard must be taken of the facts and circumstances peculiar to this present case,” the OSP’s motion for reconsideration read.

Filed by the Ombudsman in November last year, the case stemmed from the GSIS' alleged anomalous awarding in 2004 of a multimillion-peso electronic membership card (e-Card) project allegedly without complying with the requirements and procedures set under Republic Act 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act.

The project, which was awarded to Union Bank of the Philippines, aimed at providing easier and paperless transactions for GSIS members in their application for and withdrawal of loans and benefits.

In its resolution, the Second Division said the respondents’ right to speedy disposition of cases as provided in the Constitution was violated by the Ombudsman when it sat on the complaint for more than 10 years.

The complaint was filed by the Commission on Audit on April 1, 2005.

The court noted that it took the Ombudsman’s Field Investigation (FIO) six years or until September 2011 to finish its fact-finding investigation.
 
The court further noted that after the FIO finished its investigation and turned over its report to the Ombudsman central office, it took the agency another four years to issue its resolution finding probable cause to file the case.

However, in its motion for reconsideration, the OSP said circumstances must be considered by the court for the delay. It pointed out that from April 2005 to November 2011, the COA report on the e-Card project has been the subject of a temporary restraining order (TRO) before the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court.

The OSP further reasoned out that the FIO had a hard time finalizing its report as it awaited for the conclusion of the House of Representatives’ probe on the e-Card anomaly conducted from September 2006 to January 2007 to gather more evidence.

“The finalization and filing of the FIO complaint is not a one-step process but requires legal research, validation, and evaluation and analysis of the evidence submitted by the parties, preparatory to the actual drafting of the Complaint on the results of the investigation which would likewise take some time,” the motion read.

“Considering all the circumstances would justify the six years FIO investigation,” it added.

Citing a previous Supreme Court ruling (Jacob et al vs Sandiganbayan), the prosecution argued that “the delay alone should not be a cause for the Honorable Court to abdicate its duty to try the case on actual merits.”

“If the accused have rights, so do the aggrieved – the people. Thus, assuming that there was inordinate delay, the same should not operate to deprive the State of its right to prosecute these cases,” the OSP said. —KBK, GMA News