THE Sandiganbayan has found former Quezon City councilor Roderick Paulate guilty of graft and falsification of public documents in relation to the hiring of “ghost” employees during his time in service.
In a decision dated November 25, the Sandiganbayan said Paulate allowed the hiring of 30 job contract employees who have no records of birth, could not be located at their given address, were not registered voters of their respective areas, no record in schools they claimed they attended, and did not have any record of National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) clearance request.
The ghost employees received salary from the Quezon City Government from July to December 2010.
“Given the above findings and in addition to the other pieces of evidence presented, the prosecution has well established that the entries in the Personal Data Sheet (PDS) of the job contractors were indeed falsified,” the anti-graft court said.
“The defense did not give any logical explanation for the glaring inaccuracies of the entries in the PDS or adduce any evidence to show the truth thereof,” it added.
Paulate was sentenced to six to eight years of imprisonment and perpetual disqualification from public office for their graft conviction and six months to six years in jail and a fine of P10,000 for the eight counts of falsification of public documents.
His co-accused, his former driver/liaison officer Vicente Bajamunde, was also given a similar sentence.
The two were also ordered to jointly and severally pay the government P1.109 million, with an interest of six percent per year, until fully paid.
Paulate was sentenced to a six months to six years in jail time and a fine of P10,000 for his conviction on falsification by a public officer charge. (SunStar Philippines)