Ex-PCGG chair gets jail term for graft
FORMER Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) chairman Camilo Sabio, who hails from Cagayan de Oro City, has been sentenced to 12 to 20 years in prison for graft, the Office of the Ombudsman reported.
Sabio has been convicted for two counts of violating the Republic Act 3019, otherwise known as The Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, with the corresponding penalty of six years to 10 years imprisonment for each count, including perpetual disqualification from holding public office.
In a 20-page decision, the Sandiganbayan found that Sabio's act of entering to two lease agreements with the United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) Leasing and Finance Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the UCPB and the sequestered company of PCGG, had caused undue injury to the government in the amount of P12,127,610.
Ombudsman prosecutors showed that the PCGG, while still owning a total of 27 vehicles, leased from UCPB Leasing a total of 11 service vehicles without the benefit of a public bidding and an earmarked budget for the purpose.
Acknowledgement receipts were presented to show that PCGG leased five service vehicles in 2007 consisting of three Hyundai Starex for P3,654,000, one Toyota Innova for P973,000 and one Toyota Altis for P766,000; and six service vehicles in 2009 comprising of one Nissan Frontier for P1,198,110, one Toyota Fortuner for P1,447,700 and four Toyota Innova for P4,088,800.
The Ombudsman said that the Toyota Fortuner and the Toyota Innova were assigned to Sabio, in addition to an Isuzu Crosswind that was already previously assigned to him.
"Adding the fact that there was no allotment for vehicles leases for the same years, we are left with the incontrovertible conclusion that Sabio was motivated by a dishonest purpose or some moral obliquity and conscious doing of a wrong when he subjected the PCGG, and the government to an expense which was essentially unnecessary given one, the volume of usable vehicles it already has, and that two, it was not within the approved budget nor meticulously and judiciously planned," the court stated.