Sandigan junks ex-mayor’s appeal to reinvestigate raps

MANILA, Philippines — The Sandiganbayan has affirmed its earlier ruling denying an appeal of a former mayor in Ilocos Sur for an ocular inspection of a road project that was a subject of  pending graft and malversation cases against him.

In a resolution promulgated on Jan. 27, the anti-graft court said former mayor Diocaesar Suero of Cabugao town failed to raise new arguments that could warrant a reversal of the ruling. 

The court also denied a similar appeal filed by Sue-ro’s co-accused, former municipal planning and development coordinator Florante Jara and private respondent Nestor Ibarra of N.A. Ibarra Construction.

“We pointed out at the outset that the arguments of the accused in their motions were essentially reiterations of the points they raised in a motion for ocular inspection. We see no reason to overturn our ruling denying their motion for lack of merit,” the anti-graft court’s Third Division said. 

Filed by the Office of the Ombudsman in 2016, the cases against Suero and his co-accused stemmed from a project involving the construction and repair of a farm-to-market road in Barangay Cuantacla.

Based on the charge sheet, Suero, Jara and former municipal engineer Jose Suboc paid a total of P926,650 to Ibarra between April and May 2010 for the concreting of the road.

State prosecutors said the municipal government overpaid Ibarra by P516,715 as shown in a report of the Commission on Audit (COA), which said the project was underrun or incomplete by 74.79 cubic meters.

The ombudsman said the accused reportedly falsified documents to make it appear that the project was accomplished according to the approved plan, specifications and work program.

In his appeal, Suero said the conduct of another ocular inspection was necessary to determine the volume and dimension of the road. He said the new inspection would   determine whether there was an actual underrun as alleged by the ombudsman.

Suero said aside from being undated, the inspection report of the COA was focused only on one of the four components of the road project.

The Sandiganbayan said that although the COA initially inspected only one component of the project, it was able to assess three other components when its engineers conducted  another round of inspection on the road project.