Former PCGG chief Sabio freed on bail

Former PCGG chair Camilo Sabio. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/RAFFY LERMA

The Supreme Court has played Santa Claus for former Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) Chair Camilo Sabio as it granted his motion to be temporarily freed from jail in time for the holiday season.

Sabio, 85, was arrested by the National Bureau of Investigation in June last year after he was convicted for graft by the Sandiganbayan, which sentenced him to up to 10 years in prison.

In a nine-page notice, the high court’s First Division allowed the ex-PCGG chair to post bail of P200,000 for his provisional liberty and directed the antigraft court to take up his motion for reconsideration.

“Here, petitioner, all 85 years of age, is in his twilight and illness-laden years. The [government] itself has not refuted his serious medical condition,” the high court said in its Dec. 7 resolution, which was made public only on Monday.

“There is no indication that he is a flight risk for he is no longer even ambulatory. Nor does he pose a danger of being a repeat offender since he had long ceased to be in government service,” it said.

Besides, the tribunal said, Sabio’s imprisonment “will not do any good to his already failing health, let alone, to society in general.”

The justices overturned their Oct. 14, 2020 ruling that upheld the Jan. 27, 2020 decision of the Sandiganbayan that rejected Sabio’s motion for reconsideration, which he had filed beyond the 15-day prescriptive period.

They also declared that the antigraft court’s Nov. 29, 2019 resolution, which found Sabio guilty of trying to influence his younger brother, then Court of Appeals Associate Justice Jose Sabio Jr., had “attained finality for petitioner’s failure to timely appeal it.”

The case against Sabio involved an ownership dispute between the Government Service Insurance System and the Manila Electric Co. After previously siding with the Sandiganbayan, the high tribunal said the antigraft court gravely abused its discretion when it dismissed Sabio’s appeal for belatedly filing it.

It said while Sabio was physically present during the promulgation of his guilty verdict, he only received a copy of the Sandiganbayan decision on Dec. 19, 2019, or just four days before he filed his motion for reconsideration.