Former Cagayan vice governor Leonides Fausto and two others are facing graft and estafa charges over a scam involving P6.6 million worth of barangay shares from the Internal Revenue Allotment of the province, the Office of the Ombudsman said in a statement.
Ombudsman Conchita Morales said she found probable cause to charge Fausto, Eulalie Taguiam-Fausto, assistant vice president and branch head of the Tuguegarao City branch of Land Bank of the Philippines, and Ricardo Cabacungan Jr., executive assistant of the Office of the Vice Governor, for estafa and violation of Section 3(e) of Republic Act 3019, or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.
The Ombudsman said the respondents were found committing irregularities in disbursing 206 checks totaling P6,606,324.90 in IRAs of several barangays in Cagayan.
Fausto was found guilty after he said he can facilitate the immediate lease of the barangays’ IRA “if each and every barangay will issue blank checks in his favor,” the Ombudsman statement said.
“Such representation constituted the real and moving cause for the barangay officials to issue blank checks, and induce a majority of the barangay officials of the five municipalities to issue blank checks,” Morales said.
The scheme to divest the barangays of their IRA could not be accomplished in full “if it were not for the involvement of Cabacungan and Taguiam-Fausto,” the Ombudsman added.
She said Cabacungan accomplished the necessary details of almost all of the blank checks issued, including their supposed supporting documents.
Taguiam-Fausto, meanwhile, identified the payees of the questioned checks who affixed their signatures at the back of the checks and received the amounts, the Ombudsman added.
“All in all, their overt acts essentially contributed in the execution in the grand scheme of diversting the barangays of their funds,” Morales said in an approved joint resolution.
Section 3(e) of RA 3019 provides that public officials “are prohibited to cause any undue injury to any party, including the Government, or give any private party any unwarranted benefits, advantage or preference in the discharge of his official administrative or judicial functions through manifest partiality, evident bad faith, or gross inexcusable negligence.”
The respondents were accused of estafa under Article 315 (Paragraph 3a) of the Revised Penal Code, the criminal offense of defrauding another person by inducing another, by means of deceit, to sign any document.
Fausto, Cabacungan and Taguiam-Fausto were also found guilty of grave misconduct and serious dishonesty, and face the penalty of dismissal from service, including the accessory penalties of cancellation of civil service eligibility, the Ombudsman said.
The retirement benefits of the respondents will also be forfeited, and they will be perpetually barred from holding public position and taking civil examinations.
Since Fausto is no longer in service, his penalty is converted into a fine equivalent to his one-year salary, the Ombudsman said.