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Ombudsman secures conviction of former education execs
25 October 2012

            The Office of the Ombudsman secured the conviction of Venancio R. Nava, former regional director of the DECS-Region XI (Davao) of the Department of Education, Culture and Sports (now DepEd) after the Sandiganbayan found him guilty of graft arising from the overpriced purchase of construction materials for a school building in 1991.

            In a 39-page decision penned by Associate Justice Cristina Cornejo and concurred in by Associate Justices Gregory Ong and Jose Hernandez, the anti-graft court’s Fourth Division found Nava guilty of violating Sec. 3(g) of Republic Act (RA) 3019, and sentenced him to an indeterminate prison term of 6 years and 1 month as minimum to 8 years as maximum, with perpetual disqualification from public office.
            Meantime, in two separate graft charges, the court found Nava and Administrative Officer Aquilina Granada, the chairperson of the Acceptance and Inspection Committee of the school building project, guilty of violating Sec. 3(e) of RA 3019, and sentenced them to each suffer the indeterminate prison term of 6 years and 1 month as minimum to 8 years as maximum with perpetual disqualification from public office.

            Charges against accused Andres Suero and Napoleon Ramos were dismissed due to their death.

            Meanwhile, accused Jose Burdeos, Antonio Caneza, Pablito Dimaligalig, Raul Retiza, Rodel Valguna and Jesusa Dela Cruz have remained at large and thus the court has not acquired jurisdiction over them.

            Nava and Granada, together with others who may subsequently be found guilty as conspirators, were ordered to return or to pay solidarily to the government thru the education department the amount of more than P2.8 million, representing the sum paid for the labor which was not rendered and materials which were not delivered based on computations by government auditors.

            Nava was charged for entering on behalf of the government into contracts with private supplier Giomiche Inc. for the purchase of construction materials without public bidding for the Supplemental Elementary School Building Program Project of DECS, Region XI.

            State Auditor Joel Digal testified that they conducted an ocular inspection to verify the physical existence of the building and they found out that the buildings were not constructed at the project site.

            In its ruling, the court found that there was no public bidding conducted for the construction project and that the accused simulated the procedure and the documents to make it appear that procurement rules were followed.

            “What could be better proof of bad faith and manifest partiality in a situation as in these cases, where full payment is made using government funds for work that was not done or for work, though started, was not finished? It is dishonesty, plain and simple, encompassing as it does, bad faith,” the decision stated.

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