Ex-fiscal gets 10-year jail term for graft

CEBU, Philippines - The Sandiganbayan has sentenced a former prosecutor to suffer a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment after he was found guilty of violating the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act when he failed to immediately file the information of a case assigned to him in 1991.

In a 21-page decision promulgated last June 2, 2010, the Sandiganbayan third division found former assistant provincial prosecutor Crispulo Truya guilty of violating Section 3(e) of the Republic Act 3019.

The decision penned by Associate Justice Alex Quiroz meted Truya a minimum imprisonment of six years and one month to 10 years and one day as maximum. The anti-graft court also imposed upon him perpetual disqualification from holding public office.

The anti-graft court ruled that Truya’s failure to immediately file the proper information of the case assigned to him in 1991 constitute a “gross inexcusable negligence” on his part.   The case stemmed from an indictment issued by the Office of the Ombudsman Visayas against Truya. The anti-graft office investigated Truya and found probable cause to charge him before the Sandiganbayan because of his failure to file the information of the case against Jesus Gelig Sr. who was charged with direct assault with attempted homicide in 1991.

Truya’s failure to immediately file the information in court against Gelig within the reglementary period has resulted to the detention of the accused for more than five years without the proper charges in court.

In fact, the court ordered Gelig’s release in 1996 even before his case could be ruled upon because he has already served more than the prescribed penalty of his case. Based on the evidence the case against Gelig was assigned to Truya in 1991 but he filed the information only in February 1996.

Truya denied the charges claiming that he made the information of the case against Gelig in 1992. He claimed that his stenographer, Candelaria Gadrinab, brought the information for approval of the provincial prosecutor.

Truya added that it is the administrative section of the provincial prosecutor’s office, through the process server, that actually files the information before the court.

Truya said he asked his stenographer if the information was already filed and the latter allegedly told him that it was already filed in court. He denied he was negligent claiming that in 1995 he made a personal follow-up of the case after a jail guard from the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center told him that Gelig was waiting for arraignment.

Truya said he immediately inquired from the court and when he found out that there was no case on file he immediately made information and brought it to the administrative section for approval and filed it in court.

However, the anti-graft court said it cannot ignore the lapse of time of almost five years from the time the case was assigned to him.

According to the anti-graft court, it is hard to believe that during those five years, Truya had not made an inventory of the cases assigned to him that revealed that no information had been filed yet against Gelig, Sr.   (FREEMAN NEWS)