Sandiganbayan junks ex-DA official’s quashal

INQUIRER PHOTO / NINO JESUS ORBETA

MANILA, Philippines — The Sandiganbayan Special Fifth Division has rejected the motion of former Agriculture Assistant Secretary Kristine Evangelista to quash the graft and falsification charges and suspend the issuance arrest warrant against her over the purchase of P133 million worth of onions for the government’s Kadiwa project.

In a resolution on Aug. 30, the antigraft court called “unmeritorious” her arguments in challenging the validity of the information of the two criminal charges filed against her.

The court also denied Evangelista’s motion to hold in abeyance the issuance of a warrant for her arrest for being moot.

Evangelista is accused of conspiring with three executives of Food Terminal Inc., a government-owned and controlled corporation; and 14 members of the Bonena Multipurpose Cooperative tapped as supplier in the procurement from December 2023 to January this year of 8,845 bags of onions.

The order for thousands of onions was part of the Department of Agriculture’s Food Mobilization project that would allow the government to buy directly from farmers and producers and sell the agricultural commodities at marked down prices at Kadiwa stores.