Rabusa goes after 3 former AFP chiefs
FORMER military budget officer George Rabusa on Thursday filed a plunder case against 17 military officials, including three former Armed Forces chiefs of staff, for allegedly pocketing at least 50 million each in government funds.
Rabusa, the officer who blew the whistle on alleged corruption in the military, filed the case against former chiefs of staff Diomedio Villanueva, Roy Cimatu and Efren Abu, former military comptrollers Lt. Gen. Jacinto Ligot and Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia.
He also named as respondents Col. Cirilo Tomas Donato, Col. Roy Devesa, Maj. Emerson Angulo, retired Maj. Gen. Hilario Atendido, Brig. Gen. Benito de Leon, retired Lt. Col. Ernesto Paranis, Capt. Kenneth Paglinawan, Col. Gilbert Gapay, Col. Robert Arevalo, and Maj. Gen. Epineto Logico.
Rabusa also sought to indict former Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines resident auditor Divina Cabrera and accountant Generoso del Castillo.
“Respondents took advantage of their official positions, authority, and influence to unjustly enrich themselves at the expense and to the damage and prejudice of the Filipino people and the Republic of the Philippines,” Rabusa said in his complaint.
Meanwhile, the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court on Thursday cleared retired Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia of charges he faked his date of birth to obtain his promotion and continued stay in government.
The court said it was wrong and dangerous to conclude that a person’s age could be determined by the year he entered grade one or by the year he graduated from elementary school.
Rabusa claimed that Villanueva pocketed at least P227.4 million from military funds, and Cimatu P110 million.
Rabusa, accompanied by nuns at the Justice Department, said former Defense secretary Angelo Reyes was supposed to be included on the charge sheet, but his suicide on Feb. 8 extinguished his criminal liabilities. Reyes took his own life days after Rabusa implicated him in the military corruption scandal.
Rabusa said Reyes had pocketed P150 million, and Ligot and Garcia P360 million and P368 million, respectively.
Villanueva, Cimatu, Ligot and Garcia have all denied the claims against them.
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima vowed to immediately act on Rabusa’s complaint.
“Since it’s in a complaint form already, we will assign it to a panel of prosecutors directly for preliminary investigation,” she said. Rey E. Requejo, Florante S. Solmerin, Macon Ramos-Araneta
