Sandiganbayan amends sentence vs ex-BME chair in estafa case

The Sandiganbayan has amended the prison sentence meted against the former chairman of the Board of Mechanical Engineering (BME) over his estafa conviction for allegedly using membership dues and ticket sales for the oath-taking of new engineers for his own benefit.

The Second Division, in its June 3 resolution, said former BME chair Alfredo Yap Po should be jailed for four months and one day, contrary to its earlier decision of two to four months imprisonment.

"Wherefore, pursuant to the court's inherent power to amend its process and orders so as to make them conformable to law and justice, the penultimate paragraph of the dispositive portion of the decision dated March 22, 2019 is hereby amended," the Sandiganbayan said.

The Sandiganbayan admitted Po was "inadvertently sentenced" to suffer an "indeterminate penalty of imprisonment," saying the Indeterminate Sentence Law only applied to a penalty of more than one year.

The anti-graft court found Po guilty of estafa for supposedly using P728,539.59 worth of ticket sales and Philippine Society of Mechanical Engineers (PSME) membership dues in November 2005.

Po was supposed to remit the amount to the PSME after the oath-taking ceremony, but the Sandiganbayan said he spent the money for his personal gain and failed to return the same despite demands of its turnover.

The Sandiganbayan said the PSME was forced to use part of its operating funds to defray the cost of printing the souvenir program, plaques for the speakers and top performing schools, and medals for the topnotchers, among other expenses. — DVM, GMA News