Sandigan orders jail time for Sarangani prosecutor, friend over bribery

MANILA, Philippines—The Sandiganbayan convicted a Sarangani provincial prosecutor and his friend of demanding a P5,000 bribe money in 2004.

In a 23 page decision released Tuesday, the anti-graft court’s fifth division found Alfredo Barcelona Jr., a provincial prosecutor in Sarangani province, and his assistant Violeto Novio guilty of direct bribery and sentenced them to a jail term of up to five years, five months and 11 days. They were each slapped with a fine of P15, 000.

The anti-graft court through Associate Justice Alexander Gesmundo also imposed an additional penalty of special temporary disqualification on Barcelona.

The anti-graft court ruled that there was enough evidence to show that Barcelona and Novio conspired in demanding and receiving P5,000 from Ludivico Ripdos, the Chief of Police of Glan, Sarangani province in exchange for excluding Ridos as respondent in a criminal case filed before the prosecutor’s office.

On July 26, 2004, Novio was arrested after he was caught receiving the marked money in an entrapment operation by the National Bureau of Investigation.  After the arrest, Novio gave a sworn statement that he was ordered by Barcelona to get the bribe money.

On Barcelona’s claim that he merely instructed Novio to get the records of a pending case from Ripdos, the court found “no credible reason why Novio (a personal friend of Barcelona), a person without authority and who was not even employed in the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office, was ordered by Barcelona to get [the] records from Ripdos’ office.”