Court clears cooperative treasurer from estafa case

Citing insufficient evidence, the court has cleared from estafa charges a treasurer of Napo Multi-purpose Cooperative Incorporated in Carcar town.

In dismissing the case against Pacifico Balanon, Regional Trial Court Judge Estela Alma Singco said the audit report in which the case was based failed to convince the court that Balanon indeed incurred losses amounting to P132,658.08. She said the findings and conclusions of the audit "look to be too sweeping."

Alfredo Laborte, member of the cooperative's board of directors, told the court that the cooperative was formed in 1999 and that the members gave an initial contribution of P50. The cooperative was engaged in a sari-sari store and trucking business with a capital of P600,000 and P100,000 borrowed from the Land Bank of the Philippines.

The cooperative has also borrowed money from the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Incorporated amounting to P115,000. However, its store is now bankrupt and the cashier and treasurer said they remitted the sales to Balanon.

An audit of the cooperative's funds yielded a shortage of P132,658.08, something that Balanon denied, saying he was only accountable to P120,000, of which P5,000 came from members' contribution and P115,000 from the loan from RAFI. He said he was not around when the audit was conducted.

Balanon argued that the cooperative has already made an initial payment of P61,000, which should have been already deducted from the money entrusted to him. Likewise, he said that a receivable of P26,000 was also not deducted.

He also argued that the cooperative's expenses such as for rentals, personnel salaries, and payment of utility bills were reportedly not debited, considering that they were paid out of the cooperative's funds.

Balanon said he even asked a private auditor to do a re-audit of the money but the auditor failed to do so upon discovering that the documents were no longer intact.

The court's perusal of the facts of the case referred to the audit report as incomplete, inaccurate and incredible because while the audit found Balanon to have allegedly incurred a shortage of P132,658.08, his accountability only reportedly consisted of the loan from RAFI amounting to P115,000 and the cooperative's initial capital of P5,000.

The court also noted inconsistencies in the testimony of the auditor who said to have discovered the shortage of P132,000 but has insisted in his testimony before the court that he only audited the P115,000 loan from RAFI.

Singco said the case lacked two essential elements to convict Balanon for the crime of estafa- that money, goods or other personal property be received by the offender in trust, or on commission, or for administration, or under any other obligation involving the duty to make delivery of, or to return, the same and there be a misappropriation or conversion of such money or property by the offender.

She said although the treasurer is accountable for all the funds in his custody, it is unrebutted that there were accounts and expenses, which were not included, much less credited in his favor.

"After thoroughly reviewing the records of this case and weighing the testimonial evidence on the scale of creditworthiness and materiality, the court finds that the evidence present in the case are grossly insufficient to sustain a conviction," Singco said. - Joeberth M. Ocao