The Sandiganbayan has acquitted an executive of Social Housing Finance Corp. (formerly National Home Mortgage Finance Corp.) of 32 counts of graft charges and 32 counts of falsification of public documents in connection with approving and releasing over P7 million worth of mortgage or lots in Caloocan City to a Makati-based urban poor group Samahan ng Mahihirap sa PNR-Medina despite non-full payment.
In a 101-page decision, the anti-graft court ruled Celso Fernandez III, former manager of the Community Mortgage Group of the SHFC, approved and signed the release of mortgage documents under the community mortgage progam in favor of members of the homeowners on the reasonable presumption that the payments for these mortgages were already received.
“If the accounts were not fully paid at the time the accused signed the deeds of release, the accused should have been notified by other departments of such incident at the earliest possible instance,” it said.
“Fernandez cannot be faulted for knowing or not knowing whether the accounts pertaining to the individual accounts of the Samahan members were fully paid or not at the time he was about to sign the contested releases, because there were subordinates who prepare and review the same. The prosecution [also] presented no eyewitness to the preparation of the document itself, and to the signing thereof,” it added.
The Sandiganbayan also invoked that a careful review of the records showed that NHMFC was receiving payments, albeit not in full, from individuals who were proposed as substitute member-beneficiaries of the Samahan through different channels such as direct payment to NHMFC Treasury Department or bank payments.
“We believe that the prosecution failed to present sufficient evidence proving the accused was aware of the non-full payment of act individual account involved herein when he signed the Releases of Mortgage,” the anti-graft court said.
“Failing to specify, quantify and prove beyond certainty undue injury to the NHMFC and/or to the Samahan and its members, the presumption of innocence in favor of accused Fernandez III was not overcome,” it noted.
The Sandiganbayan, however, said the prosecutors were not able to prove that Fernandez made untruthful statements of fact in public documents since only nine of the 32 Releases of Mortgage were signed by Fernandez, and that there was no evidence presented that all 32 were prepared by Fernandez
“The court cannot determine whether the statements in the narration of facts are untruthful when on the face of the public document such as the Releases of Mortgage, the names of the individuals, who are neither original member beneficiaries nor approved substitute members of the Samahan, are not reflected,” it said.
“We must acquit the accused because the evidence does not fulfill the test of moral certainly and therefore is insufficient to support a judgment of conviction,” it cited.