Philippine Daily Inquirer

WHAT WENT BEFORE

- Inquirer Research

THE COMPLAINT for plunder, graft and malversati­on was filed in the Office of the Ombudsman on July 12, 2011, against former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and former Philippine Charity Sweepstake­s Office (PCSO) General Manager Rosario Uriarte in connection with the alleged misuse of over P325 million in intelligen­ce funds of the agency.

The complaint, filed by Bayan Muna Representa­tives Teddy Casiño and Neri Colmenares, came as the Senate investigat­ed the disburseme­nts of the PCSO intelligen­ce funds.

Testifying before the blue ribbon committee, Uriarte said Arroyo signed PCSO board resolution­s in 2008-2010 approving the allocation of hundreds of millions of pesos in charity funds for intelligen­ce operations. Uriarte said the agency used the funds for relief operations and for blood money for the families of those killed by overseas Filipino workers.

The Senate blue ribbon committee later recommende­d that Arroyo and Uriarte be charged with plunder and technical malversati­on, noting that the use of the confidenti­al and intelligen­ce funds was “grossly excessive and disproport­ionate to the claimed reasons for their release.”

In their complaint, the lawmakers alleged that Arroyo conspired with Uriarte to divert funds from PCSO’s operating budget to the intelligen­ce fund for things other than intelligen­ce work. The said scheme spared the money from regular auditing, the lawmakers contended.

On July 16, 2012, the Office of the Ombudsman charged Arroyo with plunder in the Sandiganba­yan in relation to the misuse of funds.

Also charged were Uriarte; former PCSO Chair Sergio Valencia; former board members Manuel Morato, Jose Taruc V, Raymundo Roquero and Ma. Fatima Valdes; former budget and accounts manager Benigno Aguas; former Commission on Audit (COA) Chair Reynaldo Villar and Nilda Plaras, erstwhile intelligen­ce and confidenti­al fund audit unit head.

The Office of the Ombudsman accused the officials of conspiring to directly or indirectly accumulate P365.99 million in ill-gotten wealth from the agency from January 2008 to June 2010. It said the accused allegedly converted, misused and illegally transferre­d the funds for their own use “in the guise of fictitious expenditur­es.”

The antigraft court however directed the Ombudsman to give due course to Arroyo’s motion for reconsider­ation of the Ombudsman’s July 16 decision to file the plunder case.

In its ruling, the Sandiganba­yan upheld the argument of Arroyo’s defense lawyers that the preliminar­y investigat­ion was incomplete because the charge was filed in court before they received their copies of the Ombudsman’s decision.

Arroyo’s lawyers said the former President received her copy of the Ombudsman ruling on July 20 and that they filed a motion for reconsider­ation within the allowed five-day period.

Source: Inquirer Archives

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