The Sandiganbayan on Friday acquitted former Ilocos Sur congressman Salacnib Baterina in the cases involving the alleged misuse of his Priority Development Assistance Fund allocation (PDAF) worth P35 million.
While Baterina was cleared of graft, malversation, and direct bribery, detained businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles was found guilty of graft and malversation in the same case.
The decision adds another 32 to 60 years of prison time for Napoles, who has already been sentenced by the anti-graft court to at least 40 years imprisonment for four counts of malversation of public funds conviction and another 24 years for four counts of graft in other cases.
In its ruling, the court’s Special Second Division said it found no evidence to ‘’sufficiently prove’’ that Baterina had any involvement in the funding of Napoles’ non-government organizations, which carried out livelihood projects that turned out to be non-existent.
“In this case, it was established that accused Baterina’s signatures in the documents that would have shown that he misused to pre-select and endorse KMFI (Kaagapay Magpakailanman Foundation Inc.) and PSDFI (Philippine Social Development Foundation Inc.) to implement his projects were forged,” it said.
The anti-graft court, however, ordered Baterina and his co-accused to return to the government the P35 million that was illegally disbursed.
‘’Baterina is not totally beyond reproach regarding the misuse of his subject PDAF allocations. His claimed inaction or omission to safeguard the proper disbursement and utilization of these funds allowed other individuals to take advantage of such negligence and misappropriate the same,’’ the decision stated.
Meanwhile, the anti-graft court sentenced Napoles, Belina Agbani Concepcion, and Godofredo Roque to six to 10 years of imprisonment for two counts of graft.
Similarly, imprisonment of six to 10 years for another graft case was meted out to Napoles, Maria Lacsamana, and Evelyn De Leon.
The anti-graft court also ruled Napoles, Concepcion, and Roque shall be sentenced to reclusion perpetua, which involves imprisonment for 20 to 40 years, for two counts of malversation.
In a separate malversation case, Napoles, Lacsamana, and De Leon were given another sentence of reclusion perpetua.
“In these cases, the prosecution was able to show that accused Concepcion, Lacsamana, Napoles, De Leon, and Roque, through their concerted acts, with evident bad faith and manifest partiality, resulted in giving KMFI and PSDFI, and in turn, accused Napoles, unwarranted benefits,” the anti-graft court stated.
