Ex-ARMM tourism head found guilty of falsification

While trying to shortcut the process of receiving her back pay by falsifying a signature in her employee’s clearance, a former tourism head of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) was convicted recently by the Sandiganbayan’s fourth division of falsification of public documents and sentenced to a jail term of two to eight years.           

In a 29-page decision penned by Associate Justice Rodolfo Ponferrada and concurred in by Associate Justices Gregory Ong and Jose Hernandez, the fourth division also ordered Normallah Pacasum to pay a fine of P2,000.

In 1999, Pacasum was appointed by then ARMM governor Nur Misuari as regional tourism secretary.           

On Aug. 8, 2000, Misuari, in view of the impending expiration of his extended term as ARMM governor, issued a memorandum directing all regional officials and employees to liquidate their cash advances on or before Aug. 31, 2000 to enable them to collect their salaries for the months of August and September 2000.

Effective Sept. 1, 2000, the salaries and emoluments of all ARMM personnel with unliquidated cash advances were to be withheld until they had settled their accounts.

In compliance with Misuari’s memorandum, Pacasum instructed her staff to work on her clearance to enable her to collect her August and September salaries.           

Pacasum ordered her niece, ARMM Assistant Secretary Maricris Batuampar, to work on the clearance.

DOT-ARMM supply officer Laura Pangilan, however, refused to sign the clearance since Pacasum had failed to turn over all her supplies.

Several days later, Batuampar went to regional human resource management officer Subaida Pangilan to submit Pacasum’s employee clearance. Subaida Pangilan noticed that the signature of Laura Pangilan, her daughter-in-law, was forged.

On Sept. 28, 2001, Laura Pangilan and other ARMM employees, as complainants, executed a joint complaint-affidavit which they filed with the Office of the Ombudsman-Mindanao charging Pacasum with, among other offenses, falsification of official documents.           

In her defense, Pacasum denied that she was the one who actually falsified her employee’s clearance, claiming she had no idea about the alleged falsification because it was her assistant secretary (Batuampar) who worked on it.

She said the prosecution failed to prove it was her who actually falsified the signature of Laura Pangilan.

The anti-graft court, however, ruled that Pacasum’s denial was never substantiated by any clear and convincing evidence.

“While there is no direct evidence to show that the accused herself actually forged the signature of Pangilan in the employee’s clearance in question, the court nevertheless finds the following circumstances, obtaining in the records, to establish/indicate that she was the one who committed the forgery or who asked somebody else to forge or caused the forgery of the signature of Laura Pangilan in her employee’s clearance,” it said.