Radaza, et al cleared of graft
The Sandiganbayan has acquitted former Lapu-Lapu City mayor Arturo Radaza and 16 others of graft in connection with the purchase of allegedly overpriced and substandard computer units in 2005 amounting P23 million.
In its 48-page decision, the court's Seventh Division said the prosecution team of the Office of the Ombudsman failed to present sufficient evidence to prove Radaza and his co-accused's guilt for violation of Section 3 (e) of Republic Act 3019 or the AntiGraft and Corrupt Practices Act.
The court said the prosecution failed to establish the key elements of a graft offense – that the accused acted with “manifest partiality and evident bad faith” in giving unwarranted benefit or preference to a private party, in this case, the supplier Kein Enterprises; and that the actions of the accused had caused undue injury to the government.
“The Prosecution failed to prove unwarranted benefits to Kein Enterprises, which resulted in undue injury to the government, whether from the deviation from the specifications from the purchase order or from overpricing,” the court's decision reads.
Acquitted with Radaza are 15 other former city officials namely; Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) chairman Teodulo Ybañez, BAC members Michael Dignos, Victoria Andoy and Elena Pacaldo, Techinical Working Group (TWG) head Rogelio Veloso, TWG members Cipriano Flores, Sharon Baguio, Buenaventura Igot, Jerico Mercado and Maribeth Soroño, Mayor's Office administrative aide Marita Guiao, City General Service officer Cleofe Solis, and Inspection Committee members Leandro Dante, Ernesto Imbong and
Rogaciano Tampus.
Also acquitted is private respondent Jannet Valencia, manager and proprietor of Kein Enterprises.
Filed by the Ombudsman in November 2014, the case stemmed from the city government's purchase of 470 units of desktop computers intended for public high schools in the city.
The Ombudsman said the computers were purchased from Kein Enterprises at P49,950 per unit or a total of P23.476 million.
The Ombudsman said its own computation showed that each computer unit only costs P23,100 or a total of P10.857 million for the 470 units, thus an overprice of P12.619 million.
It said further that the computers supplied by Kein Enterprises did not comply with the specifications stated in the purchase order, as the delivered items have lower processor and smaller motherboard.
In its ruling, however, the Seventh Division said even the Commission on Audit (COA) that conducted an audit investigation on the transaction, said the supplier had rectified the technical shortcomings.
The court noted that COA did not even issue any adverse report on the computer purchase.
“Indeed, no Notice of Disallowance or Decision was rendered by the COA on its initial finding of a smaller cache size. Instead, after conducting a re-inspection, it later on found that the defects and deficiencies noted on the first inspection were satisfactorily rectified,” the Seventh Division said.
The court said even the prosecution's own witness, Bruce Bael, who was part of the audit team that conducted an initial inspection and re-inspection on the delivered items, testified that the computer units' motherboards and processors were replaced in accordance with the audit team's recommendation.
The court said the prosecution also failed to provide solid basis on how the Ombudsman came up with its own computation of the supposed correct price of the delivered computer units.
“The prosecution based its conclusion of overpricing on several newspaper clippings of advertisements for computers published around the time that the subject computer sets were procured...If anything, these were mere indicators of the market price level and are not to be considered as absolute measures of the correct market price,” the court said.
The Seventh Division said even the prosecution's witnesses admitted that the procurement underwent public bidding with Kein Enterprises emerging as the most responsive bidder, thus, the court said, the allegation that the public officials gave unwarranted benefit or preference to Kein Enterprises was negated.