Sandiganbayan files: 256 poll winners have graft and crime cases, 17 convicted

Crime in politics? Politics in crime?
First of Two Parts

Among its many excuses for being, the government is supposed to combat crime and corruption. Those elected to office thus take a solemn oath before God, country, and Constitution to uphold, defend, and rule by the laws of the land.

But the May 2013 elections saw the unsettling nuptial of politics and crime, or of candidates and party-list group nominees accused of both graft and criminal offenses winning elective positions.

A great many of these candidates – at least 169 of them – even ran under the Liberal Party of President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III, while more than 50 ran as part of the slate of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) led by Vice President Jejomar Binay.

Indeed, while citizens are typically required to secure police clearances when applying for a job, politicians accused of crime apparently get in and out of public office with neither effort nor dread. Even those who have been convicted get to run for public posts, in contrast to the lot of dismissed government officers and personnel who are suspended or barred from public office after being found guilty of misdeeds.

PCIJ cross-checked the Sandiganbayan database with the official list of candidates for senator, congressman, governor, vice governor, provincial board member, mayor, vice mayor, and councilors in the May 2013 elections from the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

The database of the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court on cases filed from 1979 to 2012 shows that at least 504 candidates who ran in last month’s elections are respondents in 1,883 cases for graft and other crimes.

As of last week, poll results showed that 256 were elected or re-elected in the May polls.
 

Position	Accused but Elected in May 2013
Member, House of Representatives	18
Member, Sangguniang Panlalawigan	11
Provincial Governor	2
Provincial Vice Governor	1
Mayor	83
Vice Mayor	48
Councilor	93
Grand Total	256

Seventeen of these winning candidates had been convicted, but on appeal, the Supreme Court subsequently acquitted five of them. Six other accused candidates had pleaded guilty of the charges leveled against them.

With probable cause

Since 1979, a total of 87,211 cases have been filed before the Sandiganbayan against public officials from all branches and agencies of the government. These cases have passed through rigorous review by the Office of the Ombudsman, which is mandated in law to investigate complaints and initiate the filing of cases against public officials.

Comelec Commissioner Christian Robert S. Lim says the poll body “has no way of checking criminal charges and/or records because the Certificate of Candidacy (COC) is the only document required by law that must be submitted by any person who intends to run for public office.”

The Omnibus Election Code presently requires a candidate to disclose only these details in the COC: name, nickname, gender, age, birthday, birthplace, political party, residence, civil status, profession, period of residence in the Philippines before the day of the election, and the place where he or she is a registered voter.

Lim proposes balance in assessing the value of information about which candidates are facing graft and other cases before the Sandiganbayan.
 

On one hand, he says, accused candidates “should still enjoy the presumption of innocence.”

On the other hand, he adds: “But there’s smoke… the cases heard and pending before the Sandiganbayan had already undergone a preliminary investigation by the Office of the Ombudsman. Meaning, there was already a probable cause.”

Plunder, political clans

Among the winning candidates, two candidates had held the highest position of power and had been accused of the high crime of plunder: deposed president Joseph Ejercito Estrada and his successor, former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Estrada was convicted of plunder and perjury charges in 2007 but was promptly pardoned by Arroyo, supposedly on condition that he would never run for public office again. Estrada ran for president again in 2010 and lost, but was successful in getting elected as mayor of Manila in the latest polls.

Arroyo, who is under hospital arrest for the non-bailable charge of plunder, ran and won as a district representative of her home province of Pampanga in 2010, and again in the last elections.

The other high-profile respondents in the Sandiganbayan cases include Imelda R. Marcos, wife of the late strongman Ferdinand E. Marcos who won her second term as representative of Ilocos Norte; former Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn F. Garcia, who was elected as a district representative of Cebu; and candidates bearing the surname of familiar political clans like Dimaporo, Duterte, Echiverri, Fariñas, and Malapitan.

Several winners in last month’s balloting are facing charges that most everyone would associate only with the malefactors of society: murder, six cases; estafa, five; threat and coercion, four; physical injuries, three; and unlawful arrest, bribery, robbery, and homicide, one case each.

At least one winning candidate each had also been sued for unlawful appointment, illegal use of an alias, malicious mischief, altering of boundaries or landmarks, and prohibition, interruption, and dissolution of peaceful meetings.

Many of the candidates have been named respondents in several cases for various alleged offenses, hence the big number of 1,124 cases for the 256 winners. Some candidates had been acquitted in some of the cases, but also convicted in the other cases.

About one-third of all the cases, or 441 in all, had been filed against one man: Leovegildo R. Ruzol, re-elected mayor of General Nakar, Quezon, for multiple counts of usurpation of power.

Roll of convicted

Of the 17 winning candidates who had been convicted, 11 were former local officials. They are:

 

1. Shuaib J. Astami, former mayor of Balabac, Palawan, re-elected mayor in May 2013;
2. Nestor A. Bernardino, former mayor of Guimba, Nueva Ecija, now vice mayor-elect;
3. Eric C. Labrador, mayor of Calintaan, Occidental Mindoro, now councilor-elect;
4. Leonardo B. Leria, former mayor of MacArthur, Leyte, now, vice mayor-elect;
5. Augustus Caesar L. Moreno, former mayor of Aloguinsan, Cebu, now vice mayor-elect;
6. Leovegildo R. Ruzol, former mayor of General Nakar, Quezon, re-elected mayor;
7. Edgar Y. Teves, former mayor Valencia, Negros Oriental, re-elected mayor;
8. Melchor G. Maderazo, former mayor of Caibiran, Biliran now councilor-elect;
9. Jaime R. Fresnedi, former Muntinlupa City vice mayor, re-elected mayor;
10. Jonas J. Cruz, former councilor of Rodriguez, Rizal, vice mayor-elect; and
11. Roger N. Frias, former SK president, now councilor-elect of Rodriguez, Rizal.

Only three of the 17 convictions have been affirmed, or affirmed with modification, by the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.

The first case involved councilor-elect Melchor G. Maderazo, who was mayor of Caibiran, Biliran when he was sued before the Sandiganbayan and convicted in 2004 of threat and coercion charges filed in 1997. In its 2006 decision on the case, the Supreme Court said councilor-elect Melchor G. Maderazo and his nephew Victor U. Maderazo Jr. were convicted of unjust vexation and ordered to pay a fine of P200.

The second was that of re-elected Mayor Edgar Y. Teves of Valencia, Negros Oriental, who was convicted in 2002 by the Sandiganbayan for violation of Section 3h of R.A. No. 3019 after he was found guilty of having direct financial interest in the Valencia Cockpit and Recreation Center, which he and his wife owned and operated. As mayor of Valencia, Teves issued a permit to operate the cockpit, putting him in conflict of interest.

The third case involved charges of malversation against re-elected Sarangani provincial board member Eugene L. Alzate, who had been sentenced to serve a jail term of 10 to 11 years and pay a fine of P5,000 for allegedly siphoning P300,000 from the P1 million Countrywide Development Fund (CDF) that was disbursed by former Sarangani Rep. Erwin L. Chiongbian in 2003 to buy a vehicle. In January 2012, the Court of Appeals upheld the Sandiganbayan’s decision to dismiss Alzate for dishonesty and grave misconduct.

Pleaded guilty

At least six of the winning candidates had pleaded guilty of malversation and other charges in cases filed before them at the Sandiganbayan.

In July 2006, Rommel C. Maslog, now mayor-elect of Talisayan, Misamis Oriental, had pleaded guilty in two malversation cases amounting to P256,820. He was elected vice mayor in 2010, and resumed running for mayor in the last elections.

In October 1994, Samuel M. Neri was mayor-in-charge of Talakag, Bukidnon when he pleaded guilty in a malversation case of P14,000 that was filed four months earlier. Neri is now a councilor-elect in the same town.

Spouses Evelyn and Samson Dumanjug, who had served as mayors in succession in Bonifacio town, Misamis Occidental were slapped charges of violation of Presidential Decree No. 1445, or the Government Auditing Code of the Philippines in June 2008. They pleaded guilty of malversation of public funds amounting to P502,886.87 in June 2011. Samson Dumanjug has been re-elected mayor, while wife Evelyn won as vice mayor, in the May 2013 elections.

Former Napocor manager Baldomero N. Zamora pleaded guilty to 11 counts of falsification in July 1995, four months after the cases were filed against him. Zamora was elected last May as a provincial board member of Lanao del Norte.

Finally, former mayor Hermilo L. Aguilar of Hinigaran, Negros Occidental pleaded guilty of violating Republic Act No. 6713, or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees in January 1998. Aguilar is now mayor-elect of the same municipality. – With research and reporting by Rowena F. Caronan and Malou Mangahas, PCIJ

Editor's note: This article has been edited for brevity. For full report, please click here