THE Sandiganbayan has acquitted former Sulu Rep. Hussin Amin and six local government and agriculture officials of three counts of graft filed by the Office of the Ombudsman in 2018 for alleged fraudulent transactions involving P5 million from the Department of Agriculture under the Farm Inputs and Farm Implements Program (FIFIP).
In its 44-page decision promulgated September 13, 2024, the anti-graft court’s Fifth Division held that the totality of the evidence presented by the prosecution fell short of establishing the existence of manifest partiality, evident bad faith, or gross inexcusable negligence on the part of the defendants.
Other than Amin, also exonerated were former Panglima Tahil, Sulu municipal mayor Nedra Burahan, DA Regional Field Unit 9 (RFU 9) director Oscar Parawan, accountant Ma. Perlice Socorro Julian, and state auditor Abduljamar Ingui.
“All told, the guilt of accused Amin, Burahan, Parawan, Julian, and Ingui for the crime charged was not proven beyond reasonable doubt. Neither is the Court convinced that said accused participated in an alleged conspiracy. The paucity of evidence… leads to no other conclusion but their acquittal,” the Sandiganbayan ruled.
Based on three separate information alleging violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, prosecutors said the supply contract for the delivery of farm inputs and implements was awarded to Sunny Marketing Supplies despite its “dubious existence” and without public bidding.
According to investigators, the P5 million was divided into three tranches of P3.25 million, P700,000, and P1.05 million.
In clearing all defendants of criminal liability, the court noted that the prosecutors did not go into the details of the procurement or the selection of Sunny Marketing Supplies even if a witness from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) testified that the firm was not registered as a business.
It also pointed out that little evidence was presented relative to the procurement process “that could have established partiality, negligence, or bad faith on the part of mayor Burahan as head of the procuring entity.”
The court said there was a glaring absence of evidence to show that the defendants had prior knowledge that Sunny Marketing was ineligible or that its existence as a supplier was questionable.
“Without the contract, notice of award, or any other procurement document having been offered in court, nothing appears on record that would prompt the accused to thoroughly review and go over every document submitted by the supplier. Instead, the prosecution only presented documents bearing the signature of Burahan which, by themselves, got nowhere close to proving that she was motivated by malice or had acted with gross negligence amounting to bad faith.
Worse, every single one of the witnesses called by the prosecution to the stand admitted under cross examination to lack of personal knowledge of the transactions subject of the graft cases,” it said.
“The prosecution did not even attempt to establish the specific averment in the three separate information of doing away with public bidding, thus was not supported by any evidence on record,” the Sandiganbayan added.
