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Sandigan sentences former mayor, engineer up to 6 months in prison for defying court order
21 December 2012

THE Office of the Ombudsman scored a victory after the Sandiganbayan sentenced former mayor Pedro Cuerpo of Rodriguez, Rizal province to six months in prison arising from his refusal to comply with a San Mateo Regional Trial Court (RTC) order to accommodate the applications for building permit of an informal settlers group.

In a 23-page decision penned by Associate Justice Teresita Diaz-Baldos and concurred in by Associate Justices Napoleon Inoturan and Oscar Herrera Jr., the anti-graft court’s Second Division found Cuerpo and municipal engineer Fernando Roño guilty of violating Article 231 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC) for disobeying the RTC’s order directing them to process Samahang Magkakapitbisig’s (Samahan) application for building permits.

The court sentenced Cuerpo and Roño to suffer the penalty of imprisonment from one month and 11 days of arresto mayor as minimum, to six months of arresto mayor as maximum; temporary special disqualification of 10 years, eight months and one day, and to each pay a fine of P1,000.

The case stemmed from the complaint filed by Leticia Nanay, Nancy Barsubia, Ma. Victoria Ramirez, Crisanta Oxina and their co-owners of a parcel of land accusing Cuerpo and Roño of openly defying the September 17, 2003 Order of Judge Elizabeth Balquin-Reyes of San Mateo RTC ordering them to process the applications for building permits.

The group claimed that Cuerpo and Roño’s refusal was an open defiance of the court order.

In its decision, the Sandiganbayan found that from the beginning Cuerpo “truly disdained having the members of the Samahan settle at the municipality of Rodriguez because he regarded them as squatters or informal settlers, and he never hid his sentiment that he did not want squatters in his [town].”

The anti-graft court observed that “the applications [for building permit] were never for a moment allowed to lie in the office of the municipal engineer nor were they given the chance to be perused by the officials supposed to act on them, including the accused.”

According to the court, the RTC ruling was an explicit order for Cuerpo and Roño to process the building permit applications in conformity to standard rules, adding that the “applications were truly not accepted, much less processed.”

“If [the applications] were [processed], then they should have borne marks, or notations, or even signatures of officials concerned,” the ruling stated.

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