Ex-councilor gets over 100 years for ghost employees

MANILA, Philippines — The Sandiganbayan has sentenced a former councilor of Quezon City to over 100 years in prison for multiple counts of graft and malversation in connection with his office’s alleged disbursement of funds for the payroll of ghost employees in 2009.

In a 67-page decision promulgated on Aug. 12, the anti-graft court’s Fifth Division found Dante de Guzman guilty of 16 counts of violation of Section 3 (e) of Republic Act 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act and another 16 counts of the complex crime of malversation of public funds through falsification of public documents under the Revised Penal Code.

He was sentenced to six years and one month up to eight years of imprisonment for each count of the graft offense, or a total of up to 128 years for the 16 counts.

For the malversation case, De Guzman was sentenced to six to 10 years of imprisonment for each count, or a total of up to 160 years for the 16 cases.

De Guzman does not have to actually serve the total period of his sentence behind bars, as the country’s penal system limits the maximum period of imprisonment for a felony to only 40 years.

Aside from imprisonment, the court also ordered De Guzman’s perpetual disqualification from holding public office and the forfeiture of all his retirement and gratuity benefits.

The court said that if the benefits have already been received, De Guzman must return these to the government.

As for the civil liability, the former councilor was ordered to indemnify the QC government P361,500, equivalent to the amount found to have been malversed.

The court said the civil liability shall incur an interest of six percent per year, to be reckoned from the finality of the decision until full payment.

Filed by the Office of the Ombudsman in 2022, the cases stemmed from De Guzman’s disbursement of a total of P361,500 for the supposed payment of salaries, performance incentives and Christmas bonus of several employees under his office from June 2009 to June 2010.

The ombudsman said De Guzman falsified several documents such as personal data sheets, job orders, oaths of office and general payrolls to make it appear that the names listed in the payrolls were employed by his office as field or area coordinators, project evaluators and office staff, when in truth “the same persons were ghost employees” and thus, did not render any services.

The ombudsman said there were also instances wherein several street sweepers were listed in the payrolls as area coordinators and office aides to justify the disbursement of larger sums of funds for the supposed salaries.

In convicting De Guzman, the Fifth Division said that while the ombudsman’s prosecution panel was able to present only six people who testified to their non-involvement in the positions under which they were officially designated, the documentary evidence presented still “reveals a payroll scheme that was both systematic and well-coordinated.”

“Stated differently, absent De Guzman’s signatures from the outset on the job order contracts and the Panunumpa sa Katungkulan (oath of office), the payroll scheme could not have been carried out at all,” the Fifth Division’s decision read.

“In the implementation of the scheme, he signed the certification in every general payroll as the supervisor, making it appear that the named payees had duly rendered services as area coordinators or office aides…In truth and in fact, however, the six prosecution witnesses categorically testified that they neither reported for work nor rendered any service in such capacity,” the decision also read.

The Fifth Division ordered the records of the cases forwarded to the QC government and the Commission on Audit “for any appropriate action they may deem necessary under the circumstances.”