Court chafes Andaya for graft

The Sandiganbayan on Tuesday rebuffed House Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr.’s motion to dismiss 97 cases of graft and malversation of the P900 million proceeds of the Malampaya fund against him.

Instead, the Sandiganbayan stood firm on its decision to refuse to dismiss a total of 194 criminal cases filed against Andaya, Janet Lim Napoles — the alleged Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scam queen — and several others.

Presiding Justice and Division Chairman Amparao Cabotaje-Tang penned the resolution with the concurrence of Associate Justices Bernelito Fernandez and Lorifel Pahimna.

The anti-graft court also denied the motions for reconsideration submitted by eight other individuals, including former Agrarian Reform secretary and now Masui City, Lanao del Sur Mayor Nasser Pangandaman and Napoles’ children James Christopher and Jo Christine.

The Sandiganbayan found strength on the cases related to the alleged irregular diversion of funds from the Malampaya natural gas project to the relief and rehabilitation efforts in areas affected by typhoons “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” in 2009.

It was Napoles who allegedly masterminded the transfer of the funds in collusion with the key officials of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who had Andaya as her Budget Secretary and later the former President Benigno Simeon Aquino III, whose own Budget Secretary Florencio Abad had also figured in dealings with Napoles related to the PDAF.

Andaya, serving Arroyo in the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), allegedly released the funds through the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR).

In his motion for reconsideration, Andaya, who is facing 97 charges, insisted that the graft and malversation cases against him lacked pertinent details.

He said his accuser failed to show how the conspiracy was committed, his particular acts in the alleged conspiracy and his specific involvement on the supposed falsification of documents.

“To the mind of the court, the above matters need not be specifically alleged in the present information because an information need only state the ultimate facts or those facts which the expected evidence will support,” the court said in the 8 January resolution.

The money supposedly went to bogus non-government organizations (NGO) invented and controlled by Napoles.

Napoles was recently convicted of plunder in connection with the PDAF of former Sen. Bong Revilla, who was recently acquitted by the court.

The anti-graft court insisted that the elements of graft and malversation were aptly alleged in the information filed by the Office of the Ombudsman.

“A plain reading will show that the acts and/or omissions complained of are alleged in plain, ordinary and concise language. In fact, the specific participation of all the accused in the alleged Malampaya fund scam is outlined in detail in each of the information in these cases,” the court said.

The Malampaya Fund was the biggest single contract clinched by Napoles since her involvement with government officials in depleting public funds by channeling them to dubitable NGO.

The Malampaya fund was derived from royalties from operations of the Palawan oil fields.

It was diverted to two of Napoles’ bank accounts and never went to the supposed recipients — the victims of the series of typhoons that battered the country in 2009.

Typhoon “Ondoy” (Ketsana) left more than $1 billion in damage in 2009 while “Pepeng” (Parma) followed a week after “Ondoy.”

The damage they left prompted Arroyo to issued Executive Order 848 on 13 October 2009 to expand the use of the Special Account (Fund 151) in the General Fund of the Department of Energy, allowing the Malampaya fund to be tapped for rehabilitation and reconstruction of the affected areas.

The DAR earlier had estimated damage to agriculture wrought by the successive typhoons “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” had reached P10 billion, but Andaya rejected the amount originally sought by Pangandaman, explaining that other agencies also asked for their share of the Malampaya fund.