WHEN defendant Leomar Basuel was sentenced by the Quezon City Regional Trial Court to 30 years in jail for 30 counts of graft in 2020, he felt aggrieved and filed an appeal before the Sandiganbayan hoping to get a reversal.
It turned out to be a bad move.
While the anti-graft court acquitted him on 18 counts of the criminal offense and upheld his conviction on only 12 counts, it raised the sentence to six years and one month per count for a total of 73 years.
In its 39-page decision promulgated April 27, 2022, the Sandiganbayan Fourth Division said the prosecution was able to prove the guilt of Basuel with moral certainty in only 12 out of 30 cases.
The ruling was penned by Associate Justice Lorifel Lacap Pahimna with the concurrence of Associate Justices Alex L. Quiroz and Bayani H. Jacinto.
Accused Basuel was an encoder under the Management Information Service Group (MISG) of the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office (PVAO) in 1995 when he was caught making entries of pension claims for his uncle and several other claimants despite the absence of the required Accounting Memorandum from the Financial and Management Division.
In his defense, Basuel said he was not aware of the procedure requiring him to first secure the said memorandum before encoding and releasing the checks.
However, a letter submitted by the defendant to his superiors showed he knew he was violating the rules even as he explained that he wanted to help his uncle who had not been paid his pension in 1998.
“The prosecution has sufficiently adduced evidence showing the fraudulent intention of accused-appellant in encoding entries in the computer database of the PVAO,” the court declared.
Still, the Sandiganbayan noted that only 12 of the 30 checks were proven to have been negotiated and encashed which caused injury to the PVAO amounting to P474,252.99.
Invoking Section 9 of RA 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, the court said the proper penalty for the offense charged is imprisonment for not less than six years and one month to a maximum of 15 years.
Aside from the jail term, Basuel was also ordered to repay PVAO the entire sum of P474,252.99 plus interest computed at six percent per year until fully paid.
