A proprietor charged in the bogus implementation of a P5 million agricultural program involving an ex-lawmaker in 2005 got off scot-free in the alleged anomalous crime.

In an eight-page decision handed down on 15 March, the Sandiganbayan Second Division absolved B.T. Mangrubang Enterprises owner Bernard Mangrubang of violation of falsification of public documents after it found merit in his bid to dismiss the raps against him.

Mangrubang was accused of defrauding the government with the executives of Gabaymasa Development Foundation Inc. (GDFI), the implementor of former Parañaque City Rep. Eduardo Zialcita's P5 million farm input project in 2005, by falsifying purchase requests, sales invoices, and delivery receipts in favor of the NGO.

Court records showed Mangrubang, GDFI president Margie Luz, and secretary Ma. Cristina Viscarra committed unlawful acts by making it appear that the NGO procured the farm inputs to B.T. Mangrubang Enterprises, which later turned out to be a ghost.

The Ombudsman, which initiated the charges in 2016, also discovered that the GDFI was illegible to undertake the agricultural program.

Principal accused Zialcita was also indicted with graft and malversation along with Department of Agriculture regional executive director Dennis Araullo and regional field unit employee Raymundo Braganza.

In 2017, Zialcita, Araullo, Raymundo, and Luz, however, escaped criminal liability after they filed a motion to dismiss for violation of their constitutional right to speedy disposition of the case.

Based on the records, it took four years and nine months for the Ombudsman to terminate the preliminary investigation of the case from the filing in May 2011 and elevate it before the Sandiganbayan in February 2016.

As a co-accused, Mangrubang likewise sought that the case against him be dropped, citing the inordinate delay by the Ombudsman in resolving the case.

While the Sandiganbayan said Mangarubang should have invoked his constitutional right sooner, just like his co-accused, rather than waiting until his warrant was issued in 2013, still, it ruled that the same consideration should also be applied to Mangrubang.

"Indeed, the constitutional right of the accused Mangrubang to speedy disposition of cases was violated, just like that of the other accused against whom this case and the related cases were earlier dismissed," the Sandiganbayan ruled.

According to the anti-graft court, the Ombudsman incurring more than four years conducting a preliminary probe is "nothing but a barefaced delay."