Kin to appeal graft conviction of former ARMM gov

COTABATO CITY, Philippines—The family of former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Gov. Zacaria Candao said the fight was not over yet and they will continue to contest his graft conviction.

Bai Maleiha Candao said the Sandiganbayan’s 2008 verdict, which sentenced his father and two others and was recently upheld by the Supreme Court’s First Division is not yet final and can still be contested before the High Court en banc.

“We welcome and respect the Supreme Court verdict and see what other remedies our lawyers can do,” she said.

On Oct. 19, the First Division threw out Candao’s petition seeking the reversal of the anti-graft court’s decision that sentenced him, his brother and former ARMM executive secretary Abas Candao, and former ARMM disbursing officer Israel Haron, for the illegal disbursement of over P21 million in government funds when he was governor.

Candao governed from 1990 to 1993.

Commission on Audit Commissioner Heidi Mendoza, then a state auditor, headed the team, which discovered during examination of ARMM disbursing documents from Aug. 24 to Sept. 1, 1993 the unlawful release of 52 checks from December 1992 to March 1993 amounting to more than P21 million.

Candao’s signature was on nine of the checks disbursed without the required documents.

The First Division imposed a prison term of up to 17 years for each count on Candao and the two others.

The former governor was sentenced to spend 153 years in jail aside from paying fines and disqualification from public service for life; his brother was meted out a jail term of 731 years while Haron got an 867-year jail term.

“In fine, the Sandiganbayan committed no reversible error in holding that the testimonial and documentary evidence presented by the petitioners failed to overcome the prima facie evidence of misappropriation,” the First Division said.

Bai Maleiha also said the family maintains that the graft case against her father was part of the “political persecution” he suffered starting from the time of then president Fidel Ramos.

She also said it was puzzling that the graft case was given fresh attention when her father’s name came out of the list of candidates for interim governor of the ARMM, whose appointment was in connection with the resetting of the regional polls from Aug. 16 this year to 2013.

“The political persecution started in 1992 and continued until this time with the selection for OIC-governor where my father is among those being considered to the post,” Bai Maleiha said.

She said if their final appeal fails, “we leave it to God, the Almighty, whom we consider the Final Judge to decide what lies ahead.”

“I appeal not to judge my father according to the Court ruling but what he had been all these years,” Bai Maleiha said, adding that his father was “fair and just to all.”