Former Caloocan Rep. Enrico Echiverri must be walking on air.
After being linked to the controversy involving the Barretto sisters who engaged in a catfight in front of President Rodrigo Duterte, the Sandiganbayan dismissed another graft case against him.
Echiverri’s latest acquittal was for the case involving the P1.14 million pathwalk and drainage system improvement projects in Barangay 175 or Lower Matarik due to the failure of the Ombudsman to provide solid evidence to merit a conviction.
Echiverri was the city’s mayor when the project was implemented.
The Sandiganbayan’s Third Division granted Echiverri’s demurrer to evidence, thus in effect acquitting Echiverri of the charges.
The anti-graft court in July also acquitted Echiverri, Centeno and Garcia in a separate case for falsification of public documents and graft involving the grant of P1.6 million worth of drainage improvement project to a contractor due to insufficient evidence.
The Ombudsman alleged that Echiverri and Caloocan City employees Edna Centeno and Jesusa Garcia committed irregularities in the grant of the contract to EVEC company, the contractor tasked to implement the project.
Echiverri said in his demurrer to evidence that the Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales herself did not find any irregularity on the public bidding involving the grant of the project’s contract to EVEC company as stated in the January 2017 resolution recommending the filing of charges against Echiverri and Centeno and Garcia that she approved.
“Jurisprudence teaches that in every criminal conviction, the prosecution is required to prove two things beyond reasonable doubt: the fact of the commission of the crime charged, or the presence of all the elements of the offense and the fact that the accused was the perpetrator of the crime. In these cases, the Court finds that the prosecution has failed to discharge the said burden,” the Sandiganbayan said.
“Thus, the Court is constrained to grant the accused’s demurrer to evidence for lack of sufficient evidence to warrant the conviction of the accused of the crimes charged against them. Accordingly, the subject cases are dismissed for insufficiency of the prosecution evidence to sustain a judgment of conviction,” the Sandiganbayan added.
The anti-graft court also lifted the hold departure orders issued against Echiverri and co-accused and ordered the release of the bail they posted, “subject to the usual auditing and accounting requirements.”