Senate panel wants raps vs execs who signed controversial sugar order
MANILA, Philippines (Updated 12:28 p.m.) — The Senate Blue Ribbon committee has recommended administrative and criminal complaints against officials who gave their go signal to the botched plan to import 300,000 metric tons of sugar into the country supposedly without the approval of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
In a portion of its report read out during a hearing on Thursday, the Blue Ribbon panel said graft, smuggling and usurpation of official functions raps should be filed against former Agriculture Undesecretary Leocadio Sebastian, former Sugar Regulatory Administration administrator Hermenegildo Serafica, and SRA board members Roland Beltran and Aurelio Gerardo Valderrama Jr.
The Blue Ribbon committee also recommended policy changes to ensure transparency and accountability in issuing import permits and other critical issuances.
Sebastian, Serafica, Beltran and Valderrama all signed the controversial Sugar Order No. 4, which was supposedly done without the approval of Marcos, who concurrently holds the portfolio of the agriculture department.
The Blue Ribbon committee is also recommending to the Office of the Ombudsman the filing of administrative charges against the four officials for serious dishonesty, grave misconduct, gross neglect of duty, conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service and gross insubordination under the revised rules on administrative case in the civil service.
The panel is also recommending to the Bureau of Immigration the inclusion of Sebastian, Serafica, Beltran and Valderrama in the immigration lookout bulletin.
The report, which Blue Ribbon panel chair Sen. Francis Tolentino said was signed by 14 out of its 17 members, is the result of three hearings into the sugar order declared by Malacañang as illegal.
Tolentino said one senator dissented from the report, while Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III said they will be filing a separate report on the sugar mess.
The dispositive portion of the report did not mention Executive Secretary Vic Rodriguez, whose involvement in the sugar fiasco was also investigated by the panel. Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri had cleared Rodriguez ahead of the closing of the Blue Ribbon investigation.
"It's seems like some were made to be fall guys," opposition Sen. Risa Hontiveros said in Filipino in a statement on the report. "I believe Usec. Sebastian when he says he was of the good faith belief that the importation not only was necessary, it had the support of the chief executive."
Sebastian said he signed the controversial sugar order on behalf of the president since he was of the impression that he had the power to do so, citing a memo from Rodriguez. The former agriculture official also said that he had sought final clearance from Rodriguez on the importation of sugar through text, but he did not receive a reply.
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