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Friday, March 29, 2024

Sibugay exec gets 40 years for graft

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IPIL–The Sandiganbayan’s fourth division has found guilty a former board member of Zamboanga Sibugay and sentenced him to a maximum of 40 years’ imprisonment for “multiple malversation cases in connection with the alleged misuse of government funds for the Aid-to-the-Poor Program in 2002.”

A 45-page decision of the anti-graft court identified the convicted official as provincial board member Eric Cabarios who received a jail term “from 10 to 18 years for two counts of malversation through falsification of public documents; 12 to 17 years, six to 13 years, and two to 10 years, respectively, for the remaining three counts of malversation through falsification of public documents.”

The court disqualified Cabarios from holding any public office and ordered him to pay a fine of P106,828, stressing that “in the service of his sentence, the duration of his total imprisonment shall not exceed 40 years.”

Based on the published court ruling, the Commission on Audit found that Cabarios “pre-empted the provincial Social Welfare Development Office by allegedly advancing payments of beneficiaries of the program, “which contradicts an ordinance regulating the disbursement of the appropriation which mandates the provincial SWDO to prepare all necessary documents for processing.”

The Sandiganbayan added: “Cabarios would have this court believe that he had the authority to advance his money to the program’s beneficiaries, although he had previously testified that there was no provincial board authority for him to advance his own money and to secure later for reimbursement as Aid to the Poor Program.”

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The court further noted that 29 of the supposed beneficiaries under the accused board member’s disbursement voucher “were considered fictitious or non-existing” even as it archived the case against Cabarios’co-accused Michelle Navalta who remains at large until now.

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