THE Sandiganbayan on Wednesday sentenced two former Marine officers—Brigadier General Percival Subala and his assistant chief of staff Col. Cesar de la Peña—to a jail term of six years for illegal possession of firearms and gun smuggling 16 years ago.
Also convicted of gun smuggling were four other individuals —Edelbert Uybuco, Gerardo Vijandre, Manuel Ferdinand Trinidad and Michael Boregas—for illegal disposition of high-powered firearms in 2000.
In a 69-page ruling, the graft court found De la Peña, Subala, Uybuco, Gerardo Vijandre, Manuel Ferdinand Trinidad and Michael Boregas all guilty beyond reasonable doubt of illegal disposition of firearms.
The anti-graft court’s Fifth Division sentenced them to a minimum of four years and two months to a maximum of six years and eight months of imprisonment, and were also ordered to pay a fine of P30,000 each.
“The elaborate and illegal scheme participated in by accused De la Peña, Subala, Trinidad, Boregas Uybuco and Vijandre would probably have gone unnoticed if not for the operation conducted by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group which resulted in the chance recovery of five of the 72 firearms which were about to be loaded into pump boats in Zambales,” the resolution read.
The decision was penned by Third Division chairman Association Justice Roland Jurado and was concurred by Associate Justices Alexander Gesmundo and Ma. Theresa Dolores Gomez-Estoesta.
In 2007, the Ombudsman filed the charges against the accused for connivance to illegally dispose 72 units of 9mm-caliber submachine guns in June 2000 “by making it appear that the Philippine Marines Corps purchased the said firearms from Trimark Ventures Trading Corp.”
The high-powered guns were never delivered to the Philippine Marine Corps headquarters at Fort Bonifacio in Makati City, but to the office of Trimark at Windsor Towers Condominium, Legaspi Village in Makati City.
The firearms were stored at the Philippine National Police’s Firearms and Explosives Division armory at Camp Crame and released by the power of a Firearms License for Juridical Entity in the name of the Marines Corps as well as a purchase order approved by Subala.
“[T]he application for firearms license, Permit to Transport Firearms and Ammunition and the Authority to Withdraw Firearms, all in the name of the Philippine Marines Corps were approved by the Firearms and Explosives Division,” the information read.
“And once in possession of the said documents and on the basis thereof, accused Michael Boregas, with the consent of accused Manuel Ferdinand Trinidad, withdrew the aforesaid firearms from the Firearms and Explosives Division which firearms were subsequently disposed to unauthorized persons or entities,” the charge sheet added.
The case arose from the recovery of five MP5 submachine guns seized from a Taiwanese-led gunrunning syndicate on Oct. 5, 2000 in Subic, Zambales.
The anti-graft court, however, cleared a co-accused in the case, former Navy captain Teodoro Briones, over the prosecution’s failure to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.