Bohol town ex-mayor gets 24-year jail term for graft

NOW COUNCIL MEMBER Then Panglao Mayor Leonila Paredes-Montero, in this photo taken in her office in 2018, is now a town councilor after winning the post in the May 2022 polls following her third and last term as town chief executive. —LEO UDTOHAN

TAGBILARAN CITY—A former mayor of Panglao town in Bohol province was sentenced to 24 years in prison by the Sandiganbayan after she was found guilty of graft for hiring four losing candidates in the 2013 elections as consultants even if this was prohibited by law.

Leonila Paredes-Montero, now a councilor of Panglao, was also ordered by the antigraft court to return the P1.3 million that represented the salaries and interests of the amounts paid to the four consultants, whom she hired during the one-year period when appointment to any government position by losing candidates were prohibited.

The decision, dated Oct. 26, 2022, was penned by Associate Justice Karl Miranda of the antigraft court’s sixth division, a copy of which was posted on the Sandiganbayan’s website also on Oct. 26.

The Inquirer tried but failed to get Montero’s reaction on Friday.

The former three-term mayor also has not commented on her conviction on her social media account, where she has been actively posting other local events in the town up until early Friday.

No service contracts

In July 2013, or just two months after the elections, where she won a fresh term as the town’s top executive, Montero hired Noel Homarchuelos as municipal administrator/consultant for administrative services; Danilo Reyes as public information consultant; Apolinar Fudalan as Public Employment Service Office coordinator/IT consultant; and Fernando Penales, as infrastructure/engineering consultant.

The four were all losing candidates for councilor in Panglao town in the May 2013 elections.

They also assumed office without executing any contract of service or issuance of any appointment paper reviewed and approved by the municipal council, noted the Sandiganbayan, quoting a finding by the Office of the Ombudsman, which lodged the graft charges against Montero before the antigraft court based on a complaint filed by a retired media practitioner, Agustin Cloribel, on Aug. 14, 2015.

The Sandiganbayan, in its ruling, noted that under the 1987 Constitution, “no candidate, who has lost in any election, shall, within one year after an election, be appointed to any office in the government or any government-owned or controlled corporations or in any of their subsidiaries.”

—LEO UDTOHAN

READ: In Bohol, mayor suspended for hiring losing bets