Padaca asks court to postpone arraignment on graft raps

Comelec Commissioner Grace Padaca.

MANILA, Philippines-New Election Commissioner Grace Padaca on Tuesday sought the postponement of her arraignment in the Sandiganbayan on the graft and malversation charges filed against her when she was governor of Isabela.

In an urgent motion, Padaca asked the antigraft court’s Fifth Division to defer the charges until the Supreme Court shall have rendered a decision on her pending motion for certiorari which challenged the information filed against her by the Office of the Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman earlier denied her motion for reconsideration and upheld the finding of probable cause to indict her. The Sandiganbayan then issued a warrant for her arrest in May.

On October 4, Padaca surrendered and posted consolidated bail of P30,000 for the graft charge and P40,000 for the malversation rap, thus setting aside the arrest warrant and prompting the antigraft court to set her arraignment for October 18.

Later, it came out that the bail money had come from President Benigno Aquino III himself, after he appointed Padaca to the Commission on Elections early this month.

A 2008 Ramon Magsaysay awardee, Padaca was charged with graft for awarding to a nongovernment organization in 2006 a contract to manage a P25-million credit facility for rice farmers without a public bidding.

In her defense, she said a bidding was not required for the project and that the government did not suffer any damage from the deal.

Padaca said she was not at all bothered by the charges and expressed confidence that she would be vindicated.

In her motion, she said it was well established that the principle of judicial courtesy entails the suspension by a court of proceedings before it “where there is a strong probability that the issues before the higher court would be rendered moot and moribund as a result of the continuation of the proceedings in the lower court of origin.”