Aquino bails Grace Padaca out

Newly appointed election commissioner Grace Padaca

President Benigno Aquino played patron and friend to newly appointed election commissioner Grace Padaca by paying the P70,000 bail bond she posted Thursday.

Malacañang saw nothing wrong with this arrangement because the President used his “personal funds,” presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda told a Palace briefing Thursday.

Padaca, a 2008 Ramon Magsaysay awardee, arrived at 1 p.m. at the Sandiganbayan, accompanied by Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas and her lawyer Rogelio Vinluan, to pay the bail. She later told reporters that the P70,000 came from Mr. Aquino.

Because she voluntarily surrendered and posted the consolidated bail of P30,000 for the graft case and P40,000 for the malversation case, the warrant of arrest  issued against her was set aside by the antigraft court’s Fifth Division. Arraignment has been set for Oct. 18.

Padaca expressed confidence that she would be vindicated in the end and was not at all bothered by the case because the President himself and Roxas believed she was not corrupt as painted by her enemies.

“If you have Mar (Roxas) and P-Noy (Aquino) who have knowledge that you did not steal, what do you have to fear?” she said.

Malacañang, however, has yet to fully explain the failure of authorities to serve the arrest warrant on Padaca, 49.

The former Isabela governor has been charged with graft for awarding to a nongovernment organization in 2006 a contract to manage a P25-million credit facility for rice farmers, without public bidding. In her defense, she said bidding was not required for the project and that the government was not damaged by the deal.

The arrest warrant was issued by the Sandiganbayan antigraft court in May. Lacierda said Mr. Aquino had wanted to pay the bail then, but Padaca had taken a stand against posting bail in protest at what she said were politically motivated charges.

With her new appointment, however, she has no choice but to post bail.

“She can’t be behind bars while working (as commissioner), so she has decided to accept the offer of President Aquino,” said Lacierda.

Woman of integrity

He said Padaca was the best person for the Commission on Elections (Comelec)  job that was vacated when the appointee Gus Lagman failed to get the nod of the congressional Commission on Appointments.

“The President believes that Padaca can fulfill the work of a Comelec commissioner… She is a woman of integrity. She believes in an honest government, she believes in an orderly election, and she is competent to handle the responsibilities of a Comelec commissioner,” said Lacierda.

But Lacierda could not fully explain why Padaca was never arrested.

“I have no idea. You should ask the Sandiganbayan that,” he said.

He said that he had no idea “why the Sandiganbayan never executed that arrest.” With a report from Cynthia D. Balana