Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 18) – The Sandiganbayan has acquitted former Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) chairperson Camilo Sabio of three malversation charges filed against him.
In the ruling promulgated on July 8 but made public on Monday, the court said the prosecution team failed to provide original copies of documents alleging that Sabio personally benefited from the unliquidated ₱1.1 million cash advances he made from 2008 to 2009.
The Sandiganbayan also noted that the prosecution’s witness, Lourdes Navarro, identified disbursement vouchers that were different from the accusatory portion of the information filed before the court.
“The criminal liability of Sabio has no leg to stand on considering that Navarro’s testimony bears no probative weight as well as the documentary evidence that are supposed to prove the unliquidated cash advances,” the Sandiganbayan ruling reads.
In his defense, Sabio invoked the court’s earlier acquittal of him in 2016, when the prosecution failed to prove he received demand letters from the Commission on Audit that required him to liquidate the cash advances.
Sabio also maintained that he did not use PCGG funds for his personal benefit, as the cash advances were supposedly used for the agency’s operations.
The Sandiganbayan’s 5th Division made the ruling and was penned by Associate Justice Maria Theresa Mendoza-Arcega, with the concurrence of Division Chairperson Rafael Lagos and Associate Justice Maryann Corpus-Mañalac.
In June 2020, Sabio was arrested by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) after being implicated in numerous graft charges during his stint as PCGG chairperson.
Last year, the Supreme Court allowed the release of the 80-year-old Sabio from the NBI detention center for humanitarian reasons.
Sabio served as chairperson of the agency tasked to recover the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family from 2005 to 2010.
