(Eagle News) — The Sandiganbayan has ordered the arrest of Senator Gringo Honasan and six others over their alleged misuse of almost P30 million in pork barrel funds.
The 2nd division of the anti-graft court issued the order against the senator and political affairs and project coordinator chief Michael Benjamin; National Council of Muslim Filipinos Secretary Mehol Sadain; acting chief accountant Fedelina Aldenese; Olga Galido; and Focus officers Giovanni Manuel Gaerlan and Salvador Gaerlan.
Of the ten–including Honasan—indicted for graft by the Ombudsman early this month, director III Galay Makalinggan; Sania Busran; and Aurora Aragon-Mabang were not included in the arrest warrant.
“I am completely innocent of the charges against me. All my life I have fought everything I am accused of, and I will continue to do so,” Honasan said in a statement on Thursday.
The Ombudsman had said Honasan “facilitated and approved the payment” of P29.1 million to Focus Development Goals Foundation, Inc., a nongovernment organization, “without the benefit of compliance with procurement regulations.”
The P29.1 million were part of Honasan’s P30-million PDAF with the NCMF as implementing agency, intended to “finance small- and medium-enterprise/livelihood projects for the benefit of Muslim Filipinos in communities in the National Capital Region and Zambales,” the Ombudsman said.
According to the Ombudsman, Focus had been endorsed by Honasan as an NGO-partner for the project in June 2012, and he and the other respondents “facilitated and approved the payment” in two tranches “even before the NGO was informed that it was found qualified to undertake the project on June 4, 2012” and before “the (memorandum of agreement) was signed by the Office of Senator Honasan, NCMF and Focus,” the Ombudsman said.
“The repeated illegal transfers of public funds to the NGO resulted in the quantifiable, pecuniary losses to the government, thus constituting undue injury within the context of Section 3(e) of R.A. No. 3019,” Ombusman Conchita Carpio Morales noted.
