The Sandiganbayan has found a former mayor of Surigao del Norte guilty of violating the Government Auditing Code of the Philippines for failing to liquidate the municipality's intelligence funds totaling P3 million in 2010.

In a decision handed down over the weekend, the anti-graft court's Fourth Division convicted Constantino Bernardo Navarro IV, the erstwhile mayor of Del Carmen town in Surigao del Norte, for two counts of violating the Government Auditing Code of the Philippines or Presidential Decree 1445.

Navarro was ordered to pay a P2,000 fine for the two cases since he pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of the case.

The imposition of the lesser offense follows the prosecution and the Sandiganbayan's grant to Navarro's legal counsel's petition to retract the accused's initial not-guilty plea to the original charges, Article 218 of the Revised Penal Code for failing to render accounts, in which he was found guilty of two counts.

Lesser offense

During the case hearing last 25 September, the prosecution and the Sandiganbayan permitted Navaro's guilty plea to a lesser offense.

"According to the prosecution, the civil liability in these cases has already been settled. The Court hereby authorizes the release to accused Navarro the cash deposited as bail for his provisional liberty less the amount of P2,000, which shall be applied to the payment of the fine imposed upon him conformably with Section 14, Rule 114 of the Revised Penal Code," the Sandiganbayan ruled.