Court clears graft trial vs ex-ARTA chief

The Sandiganbayan has upheld its decision allowing the graft case against former Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) Director General Jeremiah Belgica and four other officials to proceed before the Cainta Regional Trial Court.

In a 31-page resolution dated 9 October but only released to the press on Tuesday, the anti-graft court’s Sixth Division denied the motions for reconsideration filed by Belgica and his co-accused, affirming its 18 August 18 ruling that rejected their bid to stop the trial.

The court dismissed their claim that two pending Supreme Court cases—NewsNet vs. National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) and NOW Telecom vs. NTC—should put the proceedings on hold.

“As this court discussed at length in the assailed Decision, the issues in the criminal case and those in the Newsnet and Now Tel cases are not intimately related. Thus, there is no ground for suspending the proceedings on the basis of prejudicial question,” the court said.

The graft case involves ARTA’s 1 March 2021 Order of Automatic Approval that allegedly favored NOW Telecom by granting it 3G frequencies already assigned by the NTC to DITO Telecommunity.

Prosecutors said NOW Telecom was also ineligible to receive the frequencies due to unpaid Supervision and Regulation Fees and Spectrum User Fees.

The Sandiganbayan said the accused failed to raise new arguments, noting that “the respondents failed to convince this Court that the reversal of the assailed Decision is warranted.”

As such, it directed the Cainta RTC Branch 141 “to immediately continue the proceedings” in the graft case against the former ARTA officials.