THE Sandiganbayan has acquitted businesswoman Janet Napoles of graft and malversation charges together with former executives of the National Livelihood Development Council (NLDC) in relation to a Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scam case.

Associate Justice Arthur O. Malabaguio penned the 98-page decision issued on September 18, 2024 that sustained Napoles’ position that the evidence presented by government prosecutors against her failed to prove her guilt based on the crimes alleged.

Other than Napoles, also acquitted on insufficiency of evidence were NLDC president Gondelina Amata and Assets Management Division chief Gregorio Buenaventura.

The case involved allegations that P5 million from the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel allocations of former La Union Rep. Victor Francisco Ortega was illegally funneled into the Social Development Program for Farmers Foundation Inc. (SDPFFI), an NGO linked to Napoles.

According to prosecutors, the PDAF was released to the NLDC, a government-owned or controlled corporation (GOCC), which then transferred P4.85 million to the SDPFFI in 2008 after deducting P150,000 as “administration cost.”

While the money was intended for livelihood programs in Ortega’s legislative district, investigators said the money instead went to the pockets of Napoles, the NLDC officials and former Pampanga Rep. Zenaida Ducut who supposedly acted as Ortega’s agent.

The Sandiganbayan Second Division however said the NLDC was allowed to grant government funds to a non-government organization (NGO) like the SDPFFI to implement programs “that are beyond its capability” including livelihood projects.

Prosecutors showed that the SDPFFI had an office address in Biñan, Laguna in clear violation of the rule that NGOs must be based in the same community where the project will be implemented, but the court said this is not sufficient to prove that the foundation did not exist.

“Verily, business entities can still exist, and business transactions can still be conducted, albeit illegitimately, even without a valid office address,” the court pointed out.

The result of verifications made by the Ombudsman’s Field Investigation Office (FIO) as to the existence of the supposed farmer-beneficiaries of the livelihood project in the municipality of Bangar, La Union was also swept aside.

Farmer-beneficiaries named in the list submitted in the liquidation testified for the prosecution that they never received any livelihood package.

For the court however, their testimonies were inadequate to establish that the project was never implemented noting that the investigators interviewed residents in the area six years after the project was supposed to have been completed.

“The passage of six years raises a lot of possibilities: the NGO may have moved or relocated to another office, and the named beneficiaries may have died, moved or relocated to another place making it challenging for the FIO to locate them,” the court noted.

These factors, it said, created uncertainties about the accuracy and reliability of the FIO findings as well as its conclusion that the SDPFFI and the named beneficiaries were fictitious.

“The prosecution was not able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that these witnesses were the very same persons referred to in the list of Beneficiaries and not any other individual who had also resided in La Union and who happened to also have exactly the same names,” the Second Division said.

At the time the projects were implemented in 2008 and 2009, the Sandiganbayan pointed out that the Supreme Court had not yet declared illegal the endorsements by lawmakers of NGOs to implement their projects.

Therefore, it noted that Amata and Buenaventura could not be faulted for giving weight to Ortega’s endorsement of SDPFFI and awarding it the contract to implement the livelihood project despite the absence of some documentary requirements.

“While the Court finds the selection of SDPFFI as partner NGO for the implementation of Congressman Ortega’s livelihood project tainted with irregularities, the separate acts of accused Amata and Buenaventura, however flawed, cannot be deemed committed through manifest partiality, evident bad faith, or gross inexcusable negligence,” the Sandiganbayan said.

Taken together, the court held that the prosecution failed to present clear evidence of undue injury inflicted on the government.

“Thus, to the Court’s mind, the evidence is deficient and unconvincing to create a prima facie case and prove the guilt of the accused,” the Sandiganbayan added.

Despite the acquittal however, Napoles will remain in prison at the Correctional Institution for Women (CIW) as she has already been convicted earlier of plunder and multiple counts of graft, malversation of public funds, and corruption of a public official.