DND official goes on leave due to plunder complaint

MANILA, Philippines — A Department of National Defense (DND) official has gone on indefinite leave after he was implicated in the second plunder complaint filed by former military budget officer turned whistle-blower George Rabusa.

Assistant Secretary Ernesto Boac asked to go on indefinite leave of absence without pay even before he could read Rabusa’s 105-page complaint filed before the Department of Justice last week considering the “very critical” positions he has been holding.

Boac, a retired Army general, is the DND assistant secretary for comptrollership. He also chairs the DND bids and awards committee.

Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, a former Army general himself, accepted Boac’s offer last Friday, a DND spokesman said.

“I think it’s for the good of Asec Boac so he can attend to the case, defend himself and remove any doubts or any issues especially because he holds very sensitive positions,” Undersecretary Eduardo Batac said.

He said Assistant Secretary Fernando Manalo for acquisitions, installations and logistics might replace Boac as assistant secretary for comptrollership.

When interviewed last Thursday, Boac said he was mulling either to resign or take an indefinite leave out of prudence.

“I believe that prudence dictates that I should not continue with my functions because of the very serious case filed against me and (the fact that) I’m holding a key position,” he had said.

He denied Rabusa’s charge that he amassed P330 million when he was a military budget officer under the defunct Office of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Deputy Chief of Staff for Comptrollership from 1986 to 1992.

Boac was appointed DND assistant secretary in August 2008, six months after he retired from the military service.

Rabusa, a former lieutenant colonel who served as military budget officer from 2000 to 2002, included Boac and four other persons in his amended plunder complaint.

The AFP Northern Luzon Command chief, Lieutenant General Gaudencio Pangilinan, who was named in the amended complaint, declined to comment on Rabusa’s claim that he received at least P88 million as the “bagman” for the kickbacks allegedly received by the late AFP chief of staff Arturo Enrile.

The three new respondents were state auditors Arturo Besana, Crisanto Gabriel and Manuel Warren.

In an interview, the 74-year old Besana dared Rabusa to produce evidence that he received large sums of money.

The retired government auditor said he remained poor without his own house or car. He said he had been behind in the rent for his house in San Isidro, one of the poorest barangay (villages) in Parañaque City and his two young daughters had not been enrolled even though school has started.

Rabusa had implicated 17 military officials and government auditors in the original plunder complaint he filed last April.

These are former AFP chiefs Diomedio Villanueva, Roy Cimatu and Efren Abu; former military comptrollers Jacinto Ligot and Carlos Garcia; retired major general Hilario Atendido, retired lieutenant colonel Ernesto Paranis; Maj. Gen. Epineto Logico, Brig. Gen. Benito de Leon, Col. Cirilo Tomas Donato, Col. Roy Devesa, Maj. Emerson Angulo, Capt. Kenneth Paglinawan, Col. Gilbert Gapay and Col. Robert Arevalo; and former Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines resident auditor Divina Cabrera and accountant Generoso del Castillo.