Six ex-DPWH execs guilty of graft, estafa over 'ghost' vehicle repairs

The Sandiganbayan has convicted six former officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for multiple counts of graft and estafa, finding them guilty of defrauding the government of more than P82 million through ghost repairs and fraudulent procurement of spare parts for agency vehicles in 2001.

Found guilty were former officer-in-charge assistant director Florendo Arias, accountant Rogelio Beray, fiscal controller Ricardo Juan, and supply officers Mirope Fronda, Napoleon Anas, and Jesus SJ Cruz, along with private defendants Janette Bugayong and Victoria Maniego-Go.

In a 122-page decision issued on 14 March, the anti-graft court’s Seventh Division ruled that the accused "mutually aided one another to cause the release of funds for repairs that never transpired."

Ghost repairs and fake reimbursements

Court records revealed that DPWH service vehicle repairs were subject to reimbursement, but investigations found that the accused officials fabricated emergency repairs despite no urgent need for them.

The prosecution established that the officials falsified emergency repair transactions to claim reimbursements, as the agency only allowed emergency purchases to be reimbursed. The fraudulent vouchers ranged from P3,000 to P25,000.

“The accused, all joined in a web of conspiracy, devised a way to rob the government, one fake emergency purchase at a time,” the court said.

Investigators also discovered that the officials split major repairs into smaller transactions to circumvent procurement rules, ensuring that checks were issued to agency clerk Conrado Valdez instead of suppliers, allowing them to withdraw the funds despite the fictitious nature of the transactions.

The court ruled that the funds were "misappropriated and converted by the above-named accused for their own benefit and gain, to the damage and prejudice of the government."

Pattern of fraudulent transactions

According to the ruling, the ghost repairs followed a unified scheme designed to manipulate procurement guidelines.

“The ghost repairs reflected a unified scheme which, in reality, deviated from the guidelines, as the common goal was to grant the reimbursement sought,” the decision reads.

It added that the repeated fraudulent transactions exposed a criminal intent to steal from government funds, even in small amounts, which ultimately scaled into a multimillion-peso scam.

The court also noted irregularities in the supporting documents, pointing out the absence of signatures on abstracts of canvass, a key indicator of anomalies in the procurement process.

“From the documents themselves, the roundup of repetitious pattern in seeking reimbursement from an emergency repair of a service vehicle revealed a scheme too patent to pass off as regular transactions,” the court said.

The fraudulent activities were first exposed in 2001, though reports suggest that the scheme had been ongoing since 1999.

“Funds were continuously flushed out of the government coffers with nowhere to go but the concerted effort to brook the claims for reimbursement,” the court noted.

Rogelio Beray was found guilty of 41 counts of graft and sentenced to up to 249 years in prison, in addition to a 95-year sentence for 41 estafa charges and a P205,000 fine. Napoleon Anas and Ricardo Juan were each convicted of 38 counts and received 184 years for graft and 88 years for estafa. Mirope Fronda and Florendo Arias were found guilty of 31 and 22 counts, respectively. Meanwhile, Victoria Maniego-Go was convicted of 23 counts, while Janette Bugayong and Jesus SJ Cruz were sentenced for 15 and seven counts, respectively.