Sandiganbayan junks graft raps vs. ex-PNCC execs over P6-B deal

The Sandiganbayan has dismissed the graft charges against 12 former officials of the Philippine National Construction Corporation in connection with the compromise agreement the agency signed with a British lending entity for the payment of its P6-billion loan.

In a resolution, the anti-graft court's First Division dropped the charges against former PNCC board chairman Renato Valdecantos and former officials Rolando Macasaet, Erwin Tanunliong, Hermogenes Concepcion, Arthur Aguilar, Ottamama Benito, Enrique Cuejilo, Roy Lucero, Fermin Lusung, Jeremy Parulan, Ma. Theresa Defensor, and Antonio Vilar.

The former PNCC officials had been charged with one count each of violation of Section 3(e) of Republic Act 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act for acting “with evident bad faith, manifest partiality and/or through gross inexcusable negligence” of the deal.

Also facing the same charge is former Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera for allegedly advising the PNCC to enter into the deal.

In dismissing their cases, the court cited the delay on the part of the Office of the Ombudsman in conducting the preliminary investigation for the case.

Former PNCC President Luis Sison filed the complaint against Aguilar in July 2006.

However, the Ombudsman had not acted on it for more than four years until Sison filed another complaint-affidavit in September 2010, charging the other accused officials along with Aguilar, following the 2009 Supreme Court's 8-4 vote striking down the deal.

"During this period, accused Aguilar's case was put into oblivion by the [Ombudsman]," the court said.

"The [Ombudsman] did not offer any plausible explanation why it slept on the complaint against Aguilar for these span of years," it added.

The court pointed out that Sison's 2006 complaint cannot be separated from his 2010 complaint-affidavit at the start of the preliminary investigation for Aguilar's case.

All in all, from the time the first complaint was filed against Aguilar until the denial of their motions reconsidering the finding of probable cause to charge them in November 2015, the Ombudsman took nine years and four months to complete its preliminary investigation, the court said.

Also, the court said that it took the Ombudsman one year to file the case information with the Sandiganbayan in November 2016.

For the other accused charged in 2010, the court said it found six years of preliminary investigation by the Ombudsman "unjustified" and a violation of their right to speedy disposition of cases.

Meanwhile, the court granted the prosecution's motion to withdraw the charges against former PNCC board members Braulio Balbas Jr., Romulo Coronado, Basilio Cruz Jr., Victor Pineda Jr. and Marvin Paule, as two separate case information, one for each of them, will be filed.

Compromise agreement

The case stemmed from the PNCC's amicable settlement with Radstock, the successor-in-interest of Marubeni Corp., relative to a loan worth more than P2 billion that was guaranteed by the government-owned corporation 26 years ago.

In August 2006, a compromise agreement with Radstock was signed, recognizing that PNCC’s liability to Marubeni was worth P6.185 billion. The state-owned company then agreed to settle its debt through the following:

• transfer of real properties owned by the government, which is aggregately valued at P3.187 billion,
• assignment of PNCC common shares at par values which shall comprise 20 percent of its 20-percent outstanding capital stock, aggregately valued at P713 million, and
• assignment of 50 percent of PNCC’s six-percent share in the gross toll revenue of the Manila North Tollways Corporation from 2008 to 2035, which is approximately valued at P1.287 billion

The Ombudsman said the PNCC board had no power to compromise the settlement amount, and the state-owned company cannot assign the toll fees to private entities like Marubeni and Radstock.

In addition, the Ombudsman said the PNCC has no power to transfer government-owned real property to Radstock in the absence of public bidding and without compliance with existing property transfer laws.

The deal, in which the PNCC practically assigned all of its assets to Radstock, was likewise deemed prejudicial by the Ombudsman to the state-owned firm’s other creditors, including the national government. —LBG, GMA News