THE Office of the Ombudsman has filed charges of graft and corruption, falsification of public documents, and malversation against two members of the Ampatuan clan accused in the Maguindanao massacre case before the Sandiganbayan, for ghost projects and illegal disbursements of public funds from February to September 2009.
Andal Ampatuan Jr., the former mayor of Datu Unsay, Maguindanao, and his brother, former governor Sajid Islam Ampatuan, were slapped with 161 counts of criminal charges in a 483-page separate case information sheet.
The Ombudsman recommended a P4-million bail for Sajid’s provisional liberty. Andal Jr. was included in the charge sheet as Sajid’s co-accused in eight counts of graft.
A P240,000 bail was prescribed for Andal Jr.’s temporary liberty.
Andal Jr. is facing 58 counts of murder for the deaths of 58 people—including 32 journalists—in a massacre in Mamasapano, Maguindanao on Nov. 23, 2009. He is detained at Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan, Taguig City for non-bailable offenses filed with the Quezon City court.
Likewise named co-accused were former Maguindanao provincial engineer Landap Guinaid in 161 cases and former provincial administrator Norie Unas in 145 cases.
Guinaid died in July last year in an ambush at the provincial capitol in Shariff Aguak, while Unas was the principal witness against then-President and current Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the electoral sabotage case filed in 2007. Incidentally, the massacre happened during Arroyo’s presidency.
The first set of cases arose from the suspected falsification of accomplishment reports on the supposed completion of eight infrastructure projects worth P23.363 million in accordance with the ººapproved plans and specifications “when in truth and in fact, there was no implementation of said project(s),” the Ombudsman said in its filing with the anti-graft court.
The projects covered the rehabilitation of farm-to-market roads and common roads in Shariff Aguak, Rajah Buayan, Datu Saudi Ampatuan and Datu Piang, and the repair of the municipal hall in Shariff Aguak.
According to the Ombudsman, at least P22.367 million in supply contracts for fuel and lubricants were awarded by the provincial government to a Shariff Aguak gasoline station owned by Andal Jr. without public bidding. Moreover, the projects’ transactions had undated purchase orders and unnumbered disbursement vouchers.
In the other set of cases, the Ombudsman filed charges over the alleged anomalous disbursements of a P72.256-million provincial fund to settle the payments of construction and lumber materials purchased from four suppliers for the rehabilitation of school buildings in Maguindanao.
“No such purchases were made” and the purported suppliers were “fictitious and/or nonexistent,” the Ombudsman said, adding the Ampatuans “misappropriated the funds into themselves.”
Sajid, Guinaid, and Unas were accused of connivance in the falsification of 137 disbursement vouchers and other supporting documents, to make it appear that the materials were procured and delivered, the Ombudsman added.
In February, Branch 221 Judge Jocelyn Solis Reyes allowed Sajid to post bail for the charges.