THE Sandiganbayan has convicted the president of a non-government organization (NGO) of corruption charges in relation to the unlawful transfer of P4.8 million Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel allocations of former La Union Rep. Manuel Ortega in 2007.
Defendant Mylene Encarnacion, president of Countrywide Agri and Rural Economic Development Foundation Inc. (Caredfi), was found guilty on one count each of violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act (RA 3019) for which she was sentenced to six to 10 years imprisonment, and malversation of public funds for which she was meted 10 to 18 years.
The anti-graft court’s sixth division also imposed a P5 million fine equal to the amount of PDAF misappropriated and ordered the accused to pay P5 million in civil liability.
Her co-accused, former Technology and Livelihood Resource Center (TLRC) director general Antonio Ortiz, remains at large, prompting the court to order the cases against him archived until he is arrested or surrenders to its jurisdiction.
Associate Justice Zaldy V. Trespeses penned the 56-page decision dated April 21, 2025, with Associate Justices Maryann E. Corpus-Mañalac and Gener M. Gito concurring.
While reports linked businesswoman Janet Napoles to Caredfi, prosecutors said they found little evidence to support the connection, hence she was not named a co-accused when the case was filed in court in 2022.
Encarnacion, in her defense, denied that she is the president of Caredfi and claimed that she has no idea why she was implicated in the PDAF cases. She said she only became aware that her name was dragged into the controversy in 2014 when news reports blew open the PDAF scam.
She said the real president of the NGO was one Simonette Briones.
However, the Sandiganbayan swept aside her defense, noting that the General Information Sheet on the Caredfi in 2007 and 2008 identified her as the NGO president as well as the signatory in the 2007 Memorandum of Agreement for the PDAF sum.
Moreover, Benhur Luy, the principal witness for the prosecution, directly identified her as the president of Caredfi during his testimony.
“Accused Encarnacion received the Land Bank Check amounting to P4.8 million payable to Caredfi, and in turn issued OR (official receipt) No. 12 as proof of receipt of payment. In light of these pieces of evidence, accused Encarnacion simply disputed her signature on the documents throughout the process without offering any contrary evidence,” the court noted.
After receiving the P4.8 million PDAF, the court noted that the NGO failed to implement the livelihood project.
It highlighted the absence of a list of target areas and beneficiaries of the livelihood project, no proof of how the money was spent, no utilization breakdown, no official receipts for goods purchased or services hired, and no project implementation report.
“The only inference therefrom is that the livelihood project was non-existent,” the court declared.
