GRAFT RAPS VS. DISMISSED CEBU CITY DAD DROPPED

The Sandiganbayan has ruled that because former Cebu City councilor James Anthony Cuenco was not under its jurisdiction, it cannot try over allegations that he benefited from a program sourced from his father’s pork barrel from 2003 to 2004

The Sandiganbayan’s s First Division dismissed for lack of jurisdiction the graft charges against dismissed Cebu City councilor James Anthony Cuenco and his former staffer, Manual Tipgos.

The Sandiganbayan ruled that it cannot try the younger Cuenco of allegations that he benefited from the implementation of a P3.3-million medicine assistance program sourced from his father’s pork barrel fund from 2003 to 2004.

“Devoid of any jurisdiction to take cognizance of this case, the court deems it no longer necessary to pass upon the other issue raised relative to the apparent inordinate delay in the disposition of the case,” read the Sandiganbayan’s ruling.

Cuenco, Tigpos and Sesinio Villacin, Jr., proprietor of Dell Pharmacy, were charged with violating the anti-graft law relative to the implementation of Tony N’ Tommy (TNT) program in 2001, which gave medical assistance to indigent patients in the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center.

Cuenco was the chief of staff and administrator of the Tony N’ Tommy program in 2001.

After three years of the program, allegations of forgery and falsification of prescriptions and referrals surfaced.

Violated provisions

Pursuant to the memorandum of agreement (MOA) that the older Cuenco and VSMMC entered into in 2001, the hospital would screen, interview and determine the qualifications of the beneficiaries through its social worker.

However, the former congressman put up his own office for the program and took over all the processes.

The anti-graft body, in its decision, gave weight to the findings of the special audit team of the Commission on Audit that the implementation of TNT program did not follow provisions of the MOA between then congressman Cuenco and the VSMMC.

In October 2017, now retired Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales dismissed Cuenco and Tigpos from service for serious dishonesty and grave misconduct for using falsified documents in the disbursement of public funds.

Aside from dismissal from service, the decision also carried accessory penalties such as cancellation of eligibility, forfeiture of retirement benefits and perpetual disqualification to hold public office.

The younger Cuenco and Tigpos later filed a motion to quash information, arguing that their constitutional right to speedy trial was violated when the ombudsman incurred an inordinate delay in the conduct of the preliminary investigation.

The respondents lamented that it took the ombudsman nine years to resolve the complaint from the conduct of a fact-finding until the termination of the preliminary investigation that led to the filing of the graft charges.

In granting the respondents’ motion to quash, the anti-graft court ruled that they are outside of its jurisdiction since the younger Cuenco’s post as chief political affairs of his father from 2003 to 2004 was under salary grade 26.