AFP-RSBS legal chief gets 55 to 98 years in jail

The Sandiganbayan has meted out prison terms of 55 to 98 years on the legal executives of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Retirement and Separation Benefit System (AFP-RSBS) for underdeclaring the value of the land purchased for the Presidio Royale project in Iloilo City by P46.35 million, cheating the government of capital gains taxes.

The court’s Seventh Division found former legal department chief Meinrado Enrique Bello and documentation division head Manuel Satuito guilty of five counts of graft and six counts of falsification. They were also fined P30,000 and permanently banned from government employment.

Discrepancies

Also ordered jailed was Grand Manor Iloilo Realty Corp. vice president Minviluz Camiña, who brokered the transactions.

The case arose from the discrepancies in the registration of the deeds of sale for six parcels of land bought from November 1996 to July 1997, defrauding the government of the corresponding capital gains taxes.

Although the purchases were declared to have a total worth of P13.54 million, the prices actually amounted to P59.89 million.

At the same time, the court found the six landowners’ signatures in the registered deeds of sale to have been “conspicuously” forged. At least two of the sellers have come forward to disown their signatures in the documents.