Ex-mayor gets 140-year prison term

A former mayor of Guinobatan, Albay was sentenced to 140 years in prison yesterday after he was found guilty by the Sandiganbayan of embezzling almost P800,000 in calamity funds intended for victims of the Mayon Volcano eruption in February 2000.

Juan Rivera, who was permanently barred from holding any public office, was also ordered to pay the municipal government a total of P1.6 million in fines and restitution for the amount he stole from the provincial government.

The anti-graft court’s fourth division, headed by Justice Gregory Ong, found Rivera guilty of 12 counts of falsification of public documents, which carry a maximum prison term of 10 years each, and one count of malversation of public funds, which carries a penalty of imprisonment for 20 years.

Ong and his colleagues Norberto Geraldez and Efren de la Cruz found the testimonies of prosecution witnesses credible as there were grocery suppliers who testified that they were ordered to provide Rivera with "blank vouchers" to overprice relief goods. "The court found the testimonies of the witnesses in this case to be straightforward and credible, these witnesses having no evil or improper motive to falsely testify against Rivera," read a portion of the 22-page ruling penned by Geraldez.

The Sandiganbayan said that as per the prosecution’s account, Rivera conspired with his nephew Eric Garcia (now deceased) in "forging disbursement vouchers, purchase orders and sales invoices to overprice grocery items."

The anti-graft court threw out Rivera’s defense that forgeries cannot be proven by testimony of handwriting experts alone and ruled that prosecutors need not forge the liquidation papers because they were not the ones being accused of embezzlement. "If there was anybody who would directly benefit from the use of liquidation documents, it was only Rivera. Nobody else, except Rivera, could possibly have the motive to falsify said liquidation documents," the justices maintained.

The magistrates likewise dismissed Rivera’s alibi that he was not an accountable officer of the P794,445 calamity funds obtained from the presidential financial assistance. They stressed that because he received the funds he was duty bound to account for these funds.