Sandigan junks ‘pork’ raps vs ex-DBM exec

MANILA, Philippines —  The Sandiganbayan has dismissed the charges filed against former undersecretary Mario Relampagos of the Department of Budget and Management in connection with his supposed involvement in the alleged misuse of the Priority Development Assistant Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel of former Masbate third district representative Rizalina Seachon-Lanete.

In a 118-page resolution promulgated on Jan. 26, the anti-graft court’s fourth division granted the demurrer to evidence filed by Relampagos for the dismissal of the 11 counts of graft filed against him.

”The prosecution failed to rebut the presumption of regularity of official acts of accused Relampagos in allegedly processing and issuing the SAROs (Special Allotment Release Orders) and NCAs (Notices of Cash Allocation) relative to the PDAF of then representative Seachon-Lanete,” the court said.

Relampagos “was not even the signatory of the subject SAROs and NCAs in these cases,” the resolution read.

Filed by the ombudsman in 2015, the cases stemmed from the alleged misuse of Lanete’s PDAF from 2007 to 2010 amounting to P112.9 million.

The ombudsman said Lanete received P108.4 million in kickbacks by allocating her PDAF to bogus non-government organizations supposedly owned by businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged brains behind the multibillion-peso pork barrel scam.

The PDAF allocation was for Lanete’s supposed livelihood projects, which turned out to be non-existent or were never implemented.

Lanete and Napoles are facing a plunder case in connection with the alleged PDAF misuse.