BY RUBY P. SILUBRICO
ILOILO City – The Sandiganbayan has ordered the arrest of Mayor Neptali Salcedo of Sara, Iloilo and three more officials of the town for graft and corruption.
The anti-graft court issued the arrest warrants on June 24 for violation of section 3 (e) of Republic Act 3019 (Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act).
The three Salcedo aides were Municipal Treasurer Edna Pacrim, Municipal Engineer Roel Salcedo and Municipal Accountant Edgardo Beatingo.
The arrest warrants were signed by Associate Justice Gregory Ong.
In 2011, 5th District’s Rep. Niel Tupas Jr. accused Salcedo and the three others for alleged overpricing of fuel and lubricants before the Office of the Ombudsman.
The Ombudsman found probable cause in the complaint and elevated the case to the Sandiganbayan.
The four respondents and a private individual, Luis Ybiernas, were charged with allegedly causing the payment of P1 million to the Sara Caltex gas station for fuel and lubricants used in several road repairs and expansion projects.
The Commission on Audit (COA) found excess payment of P153,721. The actual cost of fuel consumed was only P846,279 for 10 different projects, according to state auditors.
The respondents also faced 30 counts of malversation of public funds through falsification of public documents over the doubtful release of P1,834,400 for the labor payroll. This was the fourth case filed against them.
Out of these cases, the Sandiganbayan handed only one arrest warrant for them.
The bail bond recommended reached to P30,000 for each of them.
This case is one of the four filed by Tupas against Salcedo and his aides.
The first was against Salcedo, Pacrim, Roel Salcedo, Municipal Budget Officer Gregorio Golingay, Municipal Planning and Development Coordinator and Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) chairman Calixto Oliveros, Municipal General Services chief Marcelino Abellar, Executive Assistant III and BAC member Marilou Balasabas, and statistical aide and BAC secretariat head Elizabeth Tan, for alleged contract irregularities.
Tupas filed the complaint based on COA’s findings that contracts and purchase orders totaling P1,249,050 were questionably awarded to Porquez Farm and General Merchant even though the company was not a bona fide supplier.
Furthermore, the corresponding disbursement vouchers for payments made to the firm were not supported by the required documents, and the vouchers lacked several of the required signatures.
Because of this, Oliveros, Pacrim, Engineer Salcedo, Golingay, Abellar, Balasabas and Tan were found liable for inefficiency and incompetence in performing official duties, and were each meted nine-month suspension without pay and benefits.
In the second case, the Sara mayor, Pacrim and Engineer Salcedo were indicted for the alleged questionable payment of P200,000 for the construction of a farm-to-market road from Barangay Domingo to Barangay Muyco, and another P100,000 for another farm-to-market road from Sitio Kapinayan, Barangay Domingo to Sitio Sincua, Barangay Lemery.
Tupas believed the project merely entailed the repair of an existing road and not the construction of a new one, which meant that for the Kapinayan-Sincua project, the town paid an overpriced amount of P48,256 because such a project would only cost P51,744.
Based on the COA report, the town also paid an excess amount of P96,512 for the Domingo-Muyco project because it was valued at only P103,488./PN
