Ex-DepEd exec cleared of graft over Teacher’s Camp facelift

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA — The Sandiganbayan has acquitted former Department of Education Assistant Secretary Jonathan Malaya of graft over alleged irregularities in the award of two contracts  for the improvement of Teacher’s Camp in Baguio City.

In a 17-page decision, the anti-graft court’s Special Second Division cleared Malaya, citing insufficient evidence showing that he extended unwarranted benefits to the Nicholas Jift Construction, the winning contractor for amphitheater and landscaping projects worth P17.16 million.

Prosecutors accused Malaya of violating Section 3(e) of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act when he approved the bids and awards committee’s recommendation to award the contracts in March 2008, even as the Nicholas Jift submitted a supposedly non-compliant bid.

Nicholas Jift’s disqualification should have been “obvious,” the prosecutors added, because it submitted personal checks, which are not an acceptable form of bid security under the instruction to bidders, the bid date sheet, and the implementing rules of the Government Procurement Reform Act.

However, the court said there was “simply no evidence or even signs and indication of bias” on the part of Malaya, who headed the DepEd task force to prepare for the Teacher’s Camp centenary.

The unanimous approval by the BAC members and the consultant’s report on the absence of bidding irregularities “are enough indicia for a prudent man to believe that the procedure… was substantially complied with,” according to the decision.

The court said there was no evidence to show Malaya intended to cause damage to the government or to the private complainant, Richard Yodong of the losing bidder Salidummay General Constructions.

It also stressed that both the BAC and Malaya did not receive any objections against the move to continue entertaining Nicholas Jift’s bid proposal even as it supposedly failed to meet the technical requirements.

The court said Yodong could have questioned the BAC’s move to open Nicholas Jift’s bid while they were still deliberating on it, but “he only complained when he saw the winning bidder already starting to perform the actual construction works.”

As head of the procuring entity, Malaya “had every right” to rely on the BAC’s resolution, the court said.

“He is not expected to supervise the procurement process, re-do the procurement process or investigate when the resolution is brought to him for approval, especially when there are no complaints or protests filed,” the decision read.

Justice Samuel Martires penned the decision, with the concurrence of Justices Michael Frederick Musngi and Geraldine Faith Econg.  SFM