Sandiganbayan clears 6 ex-TESDA officials of graft

The Sandiganbayan has acquitted six former officials of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) on six counts of graft over the alleged purchase of over P350 million worth of tools and equipment for the 2007 TESDA Ladderized Education Program.

In a 60-page decision dated September 11, the anti-graft court found former TESDA Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) members Teodoro Sanico, Ernesto Beltran, Buen Mondejar, Juanito Belda, Francis Fang, and Maximiano Montemayor not guilty of the multiple graft charges due to the failure of the prosecution to prove their guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

“Unfortunately for the prosecution, they failed to  convince this Court that indeed, the accused conspired with one another in committing the crimes charged,” the Sandiganbayan said.

It said the actions of the accused in relation to the alleged overpricing of the training tools and equipment; the delivery of defective, low quality, unnecessary or otherwise inoperable training tools and equipment; and  the approval and actual payment of TESDA funds in favor of V.G. Roxas Co., Inc., for the training tools and equipment “are too far removed from the anomalies that allegedly attended and tainted the same.”

“The duties and functions of the accused as members of the BAC and Secretariat have nothing to do with the foregoing acts constituting the offenses charged,” the Sandiganbayan added.

In addition, the anti-graft court said the prosecution only had one witness, identified as Commission on Audit auditor Cresencia Escurel.

“Prosecution witness Annie Geron, all the way down to Arcadia Creselda  Balinas, failed to give an authoritative narrative as regards the nature and the extent of the defects supposedly discovered on some of the training tools and equipment in question. They likewise failed to properly demonstrate how some of the aforementioned tools and equipment cannot be used, installed, or otherwise cannot be commissioned,” the Sandiganbayan pointed out.

The anti-graft court said that Escurel and her team of auditors also failed to accomplish the following:

• identifying the suppliers or the sellers from whom they purchased the items that they compared with the training tools and equipment procured from V.G. Roxas Co., Inc.; determining and indicating the availability of the stocks in the establishment/s where they conducted the test buy, to determine if there is sufficient quantity to meet the requirementof TESDA;
• specifying the items which should match those training tools and equipment procured from V.G. Roxas Co., Inc.; and
• securing the purchase contract terms and conditions which should be the same as those of V.G. Roxas Co., Inc. which won the contract for the said program.

“The allegations of overpricing, damaged, defective, or inoperable items/tools for training are all based on inconclusive evidence. Upon careful analysis of the evidence presented by the parties in these  cases, it is the opinion of this Court that the accused are entitled to a verdict of  acquittal in all six cases filed against them docketed as SB-13-CRM-0576 to SB-13-CRM-0578, for violation of Section 3 (g) of R. A. 3019, and SB-13-CRM-0579 to SB-13-CRM-0581, for violation of Section 3(e)of R.A. 3019,” the Sandiganbayan said.

As a result of their acquittal, the bonds secured by the accused for their provisional liberty have been cancelled and released by the Sandiganbayan, subject to the usual accounting and auditing procedures to be observed.

Further, the hold departure order dated May 6, 2013 and issued against the accused are hereby lifted.—AOL, GMA Integrated News