THE Sandiganbayan has thrown out 23 criminal charges filed last year against former Bislig City Mayor Librado Navarro and two other city officials over the alleged illegal use of the city’s Special Education Fund (SEF) in various unrelated transactions.
Associate Justice Karl Miranda, chairperson of the anti-graft court’s Third Division, penned the 10-page resolution dated August 4, 2025 that sustained the defendant’s assertion of inordinate delay in the action of government prosecutors.
It held that the Office of the Ombudsman took too long to resolve the complaint in violation of Librado’s constitutional right to a speedy disposition of his cases.
Associate Justices Ronald B. Moreno and Kevin Narce B. Vivero concurred.
Case records showed the original complaint against Navarro, city Accountant Raquel Bautista, and city treasurer Roberto Viduya was filed with the Deputy Ombudsman for the Visayas on February 1, 2016 but it was only on September 11, 2023 that the Ombudsman-Mindanao issued a resolution declaring the existence of probable cause against the respondents.
The 23 information for Illegal Use of Public Funds was filed before the Sandiganbayan against the three city officials on May 30, 2024. The court noted that the cases were approved for filing on July 26, 2023.
Prosecutors said P131,887.41 drawn from the SEF were released as “payment, reimbursement, or cash advance of travel expenses, repairs of equipment and vehicle, office supplies, cash book, fuels, and miscellaneous expenses.”
Because of the delay in the filing of cases, the said transactions would no longer be pried open in a full-blown trial.
“After a thorough review of the records of the cases, the court holds that the time it took the OMB-Mindanao to conduct the preliminary investigation and file the necessary Information against Navarro was unreasonable, vexatious, capricious, oppressive, excessive and violated his right to speedy disposition of cases. Accordingly, the motion to quash should be granted,” the Sandiganbayan said.
It pointed out that from the filing of the complaint to coming up with an indictment, the Ombudsman took seven years, seven months and 10 days. If the count includes the date of filing of the cases in court, the entire process took eight years, three months, and 29 days.
While investigators claimed that they took extra time to verify some records during the fact-finding stage, the Sandiganbayan said this justification was not substantiated.
“There are only three respondents involved and there is no proof that the records of the cases are voluminous to warrant several years of review. These are simple cases involving Illegal Use of Public Funds, which do not require elaborate investigation and scrutiny,” the court added.
