Thursday, August 16, 2007 Court rejects graft cases v. heart center official
THE Sandiganbayan First Division has junked seven criminal charges filed by the Office of the Ombudsman against Philippine Heart Center (PHC) director Ludgerio Torres for lack of probable cause.
In a resolution promulgated last August 10, the graft court held that Torres had no participation in the fraud perpetrated by two of his subordinates and a contractual employee of the Quezon City Treasurer's Office which allegedly caused undue injury to the government to the tune of P741,208.75.
Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Teresita J. Leonardo-de Castro penned the ruling with Associate Justices Diosdado M. Peralta and Alexander G. Gesmundo concurring.
Torres was cleared of two counts of graft, two counts of malversation of public funds and three counts of falsification of public documents.
However criminal indictments against former PHC deputy director for administrative services Zylma Sanchez, former legal officer Adonis G. Mella and Quezon City Treasurer's Office clerk Edna P. Cruz were upheld.
"After a careful review of the records, we find that the existing evidence is insufficient to establish probable cause against the accused-movant (Torres). Clearly, accused-movant had no participation on the alleged falsification of the various documents that was used in the commission on fraud," the court said.
The cases were filed on Aug. 23, 2006 based on a complaint filed by Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. before the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in 2001 over an alleged tax fraud in the acquisition by the PHC of the 2.7-hectare lot where the hospital is standing.
Records showed that PHC bought the lot from the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) in 1999 at the end of its 25-year lease. Although the lot had an assessed fair market value of P380 million, the GSIS agreed to reduce the price to just P10 million.
The BIR set the documentary stamp tax on the sale at P238,260, which PHC promptly paid, although the hospital sought a re-assessment by the Quezon City treasurer's office of the transfer tax charges of P3,200,879.78.
Torres sent Mella to negotiate with the office of then Mayor Ismael Mathay.
Mella returned with a memo-assessment dated Sept. 25, 2000 signed by one Corazon M. Montano wherein the City Government was supposed to have agreed to bring the transfer tax down to P1,985, 301.75 inclusive of surcharges and penalties.
The new amount was paid through P1.27 million in manager's check and P714,708 in cash, with Mella delivering the payment which was processed by defendant Edna Cruz.
Examiners from the Commission on Audit (COA) however found that the official receipt for the transfer tax payment was missing.
On March 6, 2001 defendant Sanchez sent a routing slip to the hospital's resident auditor with an attached Official Receipt dated Oct. 27, 2000.
However, a trace revealed that the said receipt number was not for the P1.98 million tax but for payment of plumbing and excavation services amounting to just P580.
Subsequently Corazon M. Montano, the supposed signatory of the memo-assessment turned out to be imaginary because the city treasurer's office had no employee with such name.
In ruling out any liability on the part of Torres, the court quoted the report of the NBI which said: "While the investigation has not pinpointed to a particular person as directly responsible for the (falsification) circumstances taken into one suggest that subjects Lawyer Mella and Zylma Sanchez were the most knowledgeable of the transactions, the only common personalities who participated in them and stood to benefit out of the same." (Sunnex)
