CEBU CITY –– The Sandiganbayan on Monday acquitted a former Bacolod congressman and mayor over the controversial purchase of P26 million information technology packages for public schools.
In its 34-page decision, the anti-graft court said the prosecution failed to prove the guilt of Monico Puentevella and his co-accused Jessie Garcia, the owner of the firm that supplied the information technology packages.
The court also absolved Puentevella and Garcia of any civil liability and ordered the release of the amount they deposited for their provisional liberty.
The hold-departure order against the accused was also lifted and set aside.
Puentevella was ecstatic after learning about the court’s verdict.
“Praise the Lord. After thirteen years, justice and the truth prevails,” he said.
Puentevella and Education Regional Director Victoriano Tirol were accused of conspiring with Garcia, president, and chairman of the board of Merryland Publishing Corp. (MPC), in buying IT Packages worth P26 million without the conduct of public bidding from 2002 to 2006.
The IT packages were purchased using the Priority Development Assistance Fund of Puentevella.
Tirol passed away on March 21, 2014, so his criminal and civil liabilities were extinguished.
Puentevella told the Sandiganbayan that it was the Department of Education that had the authority to conduct the bidding of the project and that he had no participation whatsoever in the process or procurement of the IT packages.
His participation was merely to distribute the computer packages to the schools, and that the case against him was just political harassment.
The Sandiganbayan, in its decision promulgated Monday, said the court finds that the evidence adduced is insufficient to prove that the three accused conspired to procure the IT packages without public bidding.
It was the DepEd Bids and Awards Committee that resorted to direct contracting in the procurement of the IT Packages from MPC, the decision said.
The justification given was that MPC is the exclusive distributor of the IT packages to be procured based on the specifications in the purchase request.
“Accused Puentevella was not part of the entity that procured the IT packages by way of direct contracting… His participation was limited to financing the procurement of the IT packages through his PDAF,” the decision said.
The decision of the Sandiganbayan second division was penned by Associate Justice Oscar Herrera Jr. and concurred by Associate Justice Michael Frederick Musngi and Bayani Jacinto.
The case was filed by the late Allan Zamora who was the city legal officer of Bacolod under Mayor Evelio Leonardia, Puentevella said.
“It was filed by those obsessed with destroying my integrity and family name and using this case to destroy and harass me in the past elections, but I’m thankful to everyone who supported and believed in me all these years,” Puentevella said.