On cases vs Moreno

City mayor’s camp aims to consolidate criminal cases before Sandiganbayan

AFTER successfully consolidating Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Oscar Moreno’s 24 administrative cases before the Court of Appeals, the mayor’s camp is yet again aiming to consolidate the 24 criminal cases before the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan.

In an interview, Moreno’s legal counsel lawyer Dale Bryan Mordeno said he has filed a motion to consolidate Mayor Moreno’s criminal cases assigned separately in Sandiganbayan’s 7 divisions.

“We want to consolidate all of these cases para ma-isa lang ug dili na kami magbalik-balik (so that we’ll not be doing this over and over again) because actually these 24 cases have the same facts. So if these are consolidated, that means we only have to attend one arraignment for all of the cases, and not one arraignment for each cases,” Mordeno said.

Mordeno said they are still waiting for the resolution, but he said they remain hopeful the antigraft court will eventually grant their motion.

Mordeno added that they also moved to defer all scheduled arraignments of Moreno as they wait for the Sandiganbayan resolution.

In February this year, the Court of Appeals 22nd Division also upheld the consolidation of the 24 cases filed at the Office of the Ombudsman.

These cases are in relation to the lease of heavy equipment without public bidding during Moreno’s time as governor in Misamis Oriental.