Ducut, others indicted in P10-B ‘pork’ scam

Former Energy Regulatory Commission Chair Zenaida Ducut, ex-Davao del Sur Rep. Marc Douglas Cagas IV and several others have been indicted in the Sandiganbayan for their alleged participation in the P10-billion pork barrel scam.

Alleged scam brains Janet Lim-Napoles was also named a respondent on three counts of graft and three counts of malversation of public funds filed in the antigraft court by the Office of the Ombudsman on Thursday.

The Ombudsman set bail for the accused at P30,000 for each count of graft and P40,000 for each malversation charge.

Napoles on Wednesday won the right to bail granted by two Sandiganbayan divisions but will remain behind bars at the Correctional Institution for Women where she is serving a life sentence for the abduction of whistle-blower Benhur Luy.

Three other Sandiganbayan divisions had earlier spurned Napoles’ pleas for bail.

Ducut, also a former Pampanga representative, is accused of brokering for Cagas in funneling P11 million from his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), or pork barrel, to fictitious foundations controlled by Napoles when he was a congressman from 2007 to 2009.

“By their… acts, Cagas and the [other] public officials allowed Napoles and her cohorts… to take possession and misappropriate PDAF-drawn public funds,” the Ombudsman said in one of its complaints.

It said the accused conspired with one another to “willfully, unlawfully and feloniously appropriate, take, misappropriate or consent or, through abandonment or negligence, permit private individuals to take public funds.”

Cagas and Ducut were among the six lawmakers in the second batch of former lawmakers charged with assigning their pork barrel to Napoles’ network of fake nongovernment organizations.

The four others were former Rep. Rufino Biazon, also former customs commissioner, of Muntinlupa City; Rep. Arrel Olaño of Davao del Norte; Rep. Arthur Pingoy Jr. of South Cotabato, and Rep. Rodolfo Valencia of Oriental Mindoro.

Biazon is a member of the ruling Liberal Party and ally of President Aquino, whose administration’s anticorruption mantra is daang matuwid.

Aside from Ducut and Cagas, also charged were Budget Undersecretary Mario Relampagos and three members of his staff—Rosario Nuñez, Marilou Bare and Lalaine Paule.

The Ombudsman said Relampagos and his staff facilitated the release of Cagas’ PDAF to foundations the then lawmaker had personally chosen.

Indicted as private respondents along with Napoles were her former employees John Raymund de Asis, Jocelyn Deiparine, Noel Macha, Jesus Castillo, Margarita Guadinez and Ireneo Pirater.

Also charged were former officials of the now-defunct Technological Resource Center—Antonio Ortiz, Dennis Cunanan, Maria Rosalinda Lacsamana, Francisco Figura, Consuelo Espiritu and Marivic Jover.

Likewise named respondents were former executives of National Agribusiness Corp.—Alan Javellana, Victor Cacal, Maria Ninez Guañizo, Ma. Julie Villaralvo-Johnson and Rhodora Mendoza.

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