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Echiverri gets opposing Sandiganbayan decisions on inordinate delay

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Adrian Ayalin, ABS-CBN News

MANILA - Former Caloocan City Mayor Enrico Echiverri got a taste of both victory and defeat in two recent decisions released by the Sandiganbayan 1st and 6th Divisions, apparently due to opposing opinions of the two courts on the inordinate delay doctrine of the Supreme Court.On July 26, 2018, the Sandiganbayan Special 6th Division denied the motion to dismiss the graft and falsification of public documents cases against Echiverri and his co-accused Edna Centeno and Jesusa Garcia.The accused asserted that their right to a speedy trial was supposedly violated by the Office of the Ombudsman during investigation of their cases. The court, however, noted that the Supreme Court decision in Corpuz vs Sandiganbayan held that “such right to a speedy trial and a speedy disposition of a case is violated only when the proceeding is attended by vexatious, capricious and oppressive delays.”It was also noted that complainant Madeline Tampoya filed her complaint on October 9, 2015 with Echiverri responding through a counter-affidavit on November 24, 2015, while Centeno and Garcia filed theirs in December 2015.The Office of the Ombudsman issued a subpoena on August 22, 2016 to the city auditor leading to the approval of the resolution finding probable cause against the accused on December 29, 2016 and, with motions for reconsideration in between, the cases were finally filed at the Sandigabayan on February 23, 2018.The case arose from alleged irregularities in the contract for road and drainage improvement on Cuadra Street, one of the many contracts approved by the local government of Caloocan City from 2010 to 2012 and the subject of several cases at the Sandiganbayan.“Breaking down the period from the filing of the complaint-affidavit to the filing of the informations with the court, it does not appear that the case stagnated for an overly long time at any stage of the preliminary investigation,” the court said in the decision penned by 6th Division Chairperson Sarah Jane Fernandez.The decision involved five justices in the special division, with Associate Justices Karl Miranda, Alex Quiroz and Efren Lagos concurring and Associate Justice Michael Frederick Musngi dissenting.In his dissenting opinion, Musngi said the prosecution was not able to justify the length of time they spent considering the cases &quot;do not involve a complicated issue&quot; as there are other cases resulting from the Omnibus Term Loan Agreement between the government of Caloocan City and the Land Bank of the Philippines. Meanwhile, the Sandiganbayan 1st Division granted the dismissal plea filed by Echiverri and his co-accused in a separate graft case involving the loan agreement.The court noted that based on the records of the case, the complaint was filed by Jerrboy Mauricio on June 29, 2015 with Echiverri, Centeno and Garcia filing their counter-affidavits on August 17, 2015.The resolution finding probable cause was submitted for approval on September 5, 2016 with the final approval coming from former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales on January 23, 2017, leading to the filing of the information on May 28, 2018.The complaint was filed in 2015, the same year the upheld case against Echiverri was filed.The 1st Division noted that the Supreme Court has “no hard and fast rule” on cases involving inordinate delay but cited the 10-day rule per phase of the case under the Rules of Court, which the Office of the Ombudsman supposedly adopted.“If the yardstick of delay is the period set in Sections 3 and 4 of Rule 112 of the Rules of Court, then certainly there is delay in the determination of probable cause in this case,” the court said in the decision penned by Associate Justice Geraldine Faith-Econg, with the concurrence of 1st Division Chairperson Efren Dela Cruz and Associate Justice Edgardo Caldona.The court also told the Office of the Ombudsman to do some introspection on the length of time they spend on cases.“Instead, the Office of the Ombudsman should conduct a self-examination of their own rules of procedure bearing in mind their primordial function of being the protector of the people and the timelines set for the prosecution arm to resolve cases for probable cause pending before the Department of Justice and even the given timelines set by the Supreme Court for courts like the Sandiganbayan to dispose case on the merits (not a mere preliminary examination) filed before it,” the court said.The issue on inordinate delays leading to the dismissal of cases at the Sandiganbayan is still pending at the Supreme Court after former Ombudsman Morales asked for a clarification in a petition she filed last year.

Former Caloocan City Mayor Enrico Echiverri got a taste of both victory and defeat in two recent decisions released by the Sandiganbayan 1st and 6th Divisions, apparently due to opposing opinions of the two courts on the inordinate delay doctrine of the Supreme Court.

Former Caloocan City Mayor Enrico Echiverri got a taste of both victory and defeat in two recent decisions released by the Sandiganbayan 1st and 6th Divisions, apparently due to opposing opinions of the two courts on the inordinate delay doctrine of the Supreme Court.

Echiverri gets opposing Sandiganbayan decisions on inordinate delay

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Echiverri gets opposing Sandiganbayan decisions on inordinate delay

Adrian Ayalin,

ABS-CBN News

Published Jul 31, 2018 04:08 PM PHT

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Enrico Echiverri

Sandiganbayan

inordinate delay

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