Reelected North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza on Thursday pleaded “not guilty” in the graft case filed against her in connection with the alleged anomalous P2.4-million purchase of diesel from a fuel station owned by her mother.
During her arraignment at the Sandiganbayan First Division, Mendoza, accompanied by her lawyer, entered a “not guilty” plea after the information of the case was read to her by the clerk of court.
Mendoza is facing before the anti-graft court’s First Division three counts of violation of Section 3 (e) of Republic Act 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.
Section 3(e) of RA 3019 “prohibits a public official from giving of unwarranted benefit, advantage, or preference to any party or causing any party, including the government, undue injury.”
Last April, the Office of the Ombudsman filed the cases against Mendoza who was said to have approved in 2010 the release of P2.4 million from the provincial funds to pay for 49,526.72 liters of fuel used for one road grader and four dump trucks supposedly used during the two-day road rehabilitation projects in the province.
Based on the investigation conducted by the Ombudsman, no public bidding was held for the purchase of the fuel.
Instead, Mendoza allegedly directly contracted the Taliño Shell Station, a fuel station owned by her mother, it said.
Immediately after her “not guilty” pleas, Mendoza left the courtroom as the anti-graft court scheduled the preliminary conferences on her case on Nov. 2, 3, 4, and 9.
Meanwhile, the court set Mendoza’s pretrial of the case on Nov. 10, when the prosecution and the defense are expected to submit to the court their final list of witnesses and documentary evidence that they intend to present during the trial proper.
But Mendoza, in her motion for judicial determination of probable cause, asked for the dismissal of the cases, saying the Ombudsman failed to establish that the purchase of the fuel was executed in bad faith.
Mendoza said the move to contract the Taliño Shell Station as the supplier of the fuel was decided upon by the bids and awards committee based on valid grounds, among them because “it offered the lowest price; it was the only gas station in the area and closest to the road projects; and it agreed to supply on credit.”
Nevertheless, the court denied Mendoza’s motion in June and maintained that there was sufficient ground to conduct a full-blown trial on the cases.
Mendoza was also accused of perpetrating a violent dispersal of farmers and lumads (indigenous peoples) in Kidapawan City last April, where two farmers and a civilian were killed and several others injured.