10 seeking post as top antigraft prosecutor

A retired chief of the antigraft court, who approved the controversial plea bargain with former military comptroller Carlos Garcia, now wants to be the government’s next top antigraft prosecutor.

Former Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Edilberto Sandoval is among the 10 legal heavyweights who are vying to become the special prosecutor of the Office of the Ombudsman, replacing Wendell Barreras-Sulit, who bowed out of the service two months ago.

Sandoval’s role in the controversial plea bargain may be brought up when he and the other applicants face the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) in a series of public interviews today.

He retired from the judiciary in 2011 after serving as Sandiganbayan justice for 15 years.

Sandoval headed the antigraft court’s Second Division, which approved the P135.4-million plea bargain between government prosecutors led by Sulit and Garcia, who was then facing a P303-million plunder case.

Then President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III dismissed Sulit from government service in 2012 for entering into the compromise deal with Garcia.

Besides Sandoval, also applying for the post are former Commission on Elections chief counsel Ferdinand Rafanan, acting Ombudsman Special Prosecutor Omar Sagadal and Judge Benjamin Pozon of the Makati City Regional Trial Court Branch 139.

Completing the list of candidates are former Ombudsman prosecution bureau chief Diosdado Calonge, Polytechnic University of the Philippines law professor Arnold Bayobay, former Ombudsman for Mindanao Eusebio Avila and lawyers Francisco Alan Molina, Raymundo Julio Olaguer and Vernand Quijano.