A former director of the Bureau of Tribal Relations and External Affairs (BTREA) under the Office of the Southern Cultural Communities (OSCC) was sentenced to 25 years in jail by the Sandiganbayan’s fifth division due to the anomalous handling of cash advances for the agency’s projects.
The OSCC and another agency, the Office of the Northern Cultural Communities (ONCC), were merged in 1997 into the National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP).
The anti-graft court found former BTREA director Trinidad Sibug guilty of malversation of public funds and falsification of public documents due to irregularities committed between December 1991 and January 1992.
For malversation, Sibug was meted 17 years in jail, and eight years more, together with her co-accused, former OSCC Region XII director Marino Icdang, for falsification.
Icdang was convicted even if the prosecution did not allege any conspiracy between him and Sibug.
The court ruled that Icdang knowingly tolerated the falsification by signing the vouchers even if he knew that the training seminar, touted as basis for the cash advances, was never conducted.
Sibug was also fined P13,687.25 and penalized with a lifetime ban from government appointments or election to any public office.
Associate Justice Roland Jurado penned the 82-page decision, with Associate Justices Teresita Diaz-Baldos and Ma. Cristina Cortez-Estada, who chairs the fifth division, concurring.
Sandiganbayan records showed that Sibug secured a P105,000 cash advance in December 1991 supposedly to finance a tribal leadership training and to construct a tribal hall.
Of this amount, P65,000 was to be earmarked for the Manobo Kulaman tribe in Kulaman, Senator Ninoy Aquino town in Sultan Kudarat province, while the remaining P40,000 was supposedly for similar projects in Mindoro.
Bro. Mauricio Zuyco, a Catholic missionary belonging to the Oblates of Mary Immaculate who was monitoring government projects for the Manobos, was the one who reported to the OSCC that the projects were never implemented.
Sandy Padilla, OSCC development officer in the area, later found a reimbursement report on the agency’s records pertaining to the Manobo projects and forwarded copies to Zuyco.
The letters turned out to be acknowledgment receipts signed by supposed lecturers in the tribal leadership seminar.
Among the supposed signatories was Zuyco himself who was unaware of such a seminar having taken place.
Zuyco learned from six other supposed lecturers that they, too, did not conduct any seminar and had received no payment.
Based on the formal complaint, the Commission on Audit made an investigation in coordination with the Deputy Ombudsman for Mindanao.
The investigation showed that Sibug falsified the expense report and to cover up the anomalies, withdrew the liquidation vouchers and issued a new set of vouchers, which again turned out to be spurious after auditors found out that the funding source was a different office.
Sibug also failed to produce the P45,000 allotted for the construction of a tribal hall when auditors demanded that she do so.
In her defense, Sibug said the training seminar was moved to a later date and to a different venue because there was a typhoon when it was originally scheduled. But the Sandiganbayan justices said they could not give any credence to Sibug’s explanation.
As for the P45,000 for the tribal hall, Sibug said she had the money in safekeeping but had to shelve the construction project, claiming that the land was still being acquired.
The tribal hall was only completed in 1997, six years after it was supposed to have been built.
“It may be true that the P45,000 was eventually accounted for or was liquidated with the actual construction of the tribal hall but this was done some years later and not upon demand. By no means can three or four years (from date of demand) be such a reasonable period of time,” the Sandiganbayan said.