Ombudsman dismisses graft cases vs Monico Puentevella

BACOLOD CITY – Citing the unjustified delay in the investigation, the Office of the Ombudsman has dismissed the consolidated cases filed against former Bacolod mayor and House member Monico Puentevella and two others over the hosting of the Bacolod leg of the 2005 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games.

Cleared along with Puentevella, who was the Bacolod SEA Games Organizing Committee co-chairman, were Edwin Javellana and Eric Loretizo, finance head and secretary general respectively.

In a joint order approved by Ombudsman Samuel Martires on February 7, the anti-graft office said: “There was a clear and unjustified delay that attended the Field Investigation Office (FIO) fact-finding investigation.”

“Hence the body is constrained to dismiss OMB-V-C-140092 (Failure of Accountable Officer to Render Accounts) and OMB-V-C-14-0249 (Malversation of Public Funds) in observance of Puentevella’s constitutional right to speedy disposition of the cases against him,” the order stated.

In determining whether Puentevella’s right has been violated, the Ombudsman considered the “length of delay, the reasons for the delay, the assertion or failure to assert such right by the accused, and the prejudice caused by the delay.”

Puentevella said he was grateful that the case, which he claimed had been used against him politically for the last 10 years, has finally been resolved.

“For the past 10 years, my colleagues and I have been unfairly subjected to trial by publicity. This dismissal is a welcome vindication and only shows that the filing of those cases was politically motivated and meant to mislead the public from the resounding success of our hosting the SEA Games,” he said.

The cases stemmed from a complaint filed by Save Bacolod Movement convenor Samuel Montoyo Sr.

They were first endorsed to the anti-graft body in 2009 but the FIO terminated its fact-finding investigation only in 2014 when it filed its complaint with the Ombudsman in the Visayas.

“The records fail to show that the FIO was able to justify why it incurred a delay of five years in terminating the fact-finding investigation,” the joint order noted.

The Ombudsman said the accused was “disadvantaged by restraints on his liberty and by living under a cloud of anxiety, suspicion and often, hostility, his financial resources may be drained, his association is curtailed, and he is subject to public obloquy.”

In 2005, the Department of Budget and Management released P50.5 million to the Philippine Sports Commission for the hosting of the 23rd SEA Games. PSC transferred the fund to the Bacolod SEA Games Organizing Committee./lzb