THE Sandiganbayan has acquitted former Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) chairman Camilo Sabio of three counts of malversation of public funds relative to his alleged failure to liquidate cash advances totaling P632,428 drawn between December 2008 and February 2009.
A fourth malversation case involving a separate P350,000 cash advance was dismissed earlier for being defective due to the absence of a signature from the investigating officer on the certification that the case underwent a proper preliminary investigation.
In the 40-page decision penned by Associate Justice Maria Theresa V. Mendoza-Arcega, the anti-graft court’s Fifth Division head, said the prosecution’s evidence fell short of the required proof beyond reasonable doubt to establish the defendant’s guilt.
The court held that some of the key documentary evidence presented were “barren of any probative value” since they were not original but were “true copies of the photocopy.”
“While not impelling such a degree of proof as to establish absolutely impervious certainty, the quantum of proof required in criminal cases nevertheless charges the prosecution with the immense responsibility of establishing moral certainty, a certainty that ultimately appeals to the person’s very conscience,” the Sandiganbayan said.
Associate Justices Rafael R. Lagos and Maryann E. Corpus-Mañalac concurred.
Based on criminal information filed in 2017, the Office of the Ombudsman accused Sabio of failure to account for cash advances amounting to P250,000 released on December 15, 2008; P100,000 released on December 23, 2008; and P282,428.03 out of the P500,000 released on February 3, 2009.
Testifying in his own defense, Sabio said he never received any demand letter from the Commission on Audit requiring him to liquidate the cash advances or return the sums released.
At 80, he apologized for no longer being able to recall the documents being referred to in the case specifically the cash advances since, as chairman of the PCGG, he was the only one authorized to sign them. He clarified that the money was strictly used for operational and litigation expenses.
He pointed out that during his watch, the PCGG made a recovery of P25.27 billion cash from the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family and their close associates.
The Sandiganbayan noted that the prosecution was only able to prove the first three elements of the offense charged — that Sabio was a public officer at the time, that he was an accountable officer, and that the source of the cash advance was public funds.
However, the court held that the evidence was deficient in proving that the accused took or misappropriated the public fund for his own benefit.
During trial, the Sandiganbayan noted discrepancies in the details of documents introduced as evidence, particularly the three disbursement vouchers whose numbers as presented in the information differed from the DV numbers testified on by the PCGG chief accountant Lourdes Navarro.
The amounts on the three DVs also did not tally with the documents identified by the same witness.
“The details of the DVs identified by Navarro were disconcertingly different from the accusatory portion of the Informations (sic). The Court cannot turn a blind eye to the said inconsistencies as these relate to the main allegations against the accused,” the court declared.
