MANILA: Former military comptroller Carlos Garcia is not going to get away with allegedly stealing $6.9m (P303m) in public funds by only returning $3m (P135.4m) worth of his alleged unexplained wealth under a controversial plea bargaining agreement.
Sources revealed the Sandiganbayan is getting ready to order the retired military general to pay a hefty fine of $16m (P700m) for the admitted crime of direct bribery alone.
The amount Garcia was going to be directed to pay would be on top of, or apart from, what he had already surrendered under the plea bargaining agreement and his separate charge of facilitating money laundering for which he will be fined another $45,000 (P2m).
Sources revealed Garcia will actually be paying more than double what he allegedly stole from government coffers while spending at least 13 more years behind bars – seven years for direct bribery and six for facilitating money laundering – to be served successively and not simultaneously for crimes he pleaded guilty to in December 2010.
Sandiganbayan officials, who knew of the fate awaiting Garcia, said this should put to rest all suspicions that the anti-graft court and Office of the Ombudsman prosecutors were about to let the former armed forces comptroller get away with a light sentence after returning less than half of what he is accused of pocketing through kickbacks and commissions from government contractors.
They said the public would be surprised by the grave penalty to be imposed on Garcia.
Sources said even Garcia, who entered into a plea bargaining agreement with government prosecutors to escape plunder by pleading guilty to the lesser offenses of direct bribery and facilitating money laundering four years ago, was not aware of what was coming.
When the Sandiganbayan denied the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG)’s motion for intervention and motion for reconsideration with finality in April 2013 where the alleged propriety and regularity of the plea bargaining agreement was being questioned, the anti-graft court’s special second division was ready to promulgate its explosive decision.
Everything was pre-empted, however, by a petition filed before the Supreme Court questioning the legality of the deal between Garcia and the Office of the Ombudsman, arising from the lone opposition of Associate Justice Oscar Herrera.
Herrera, who was the only one who voted against the plea bargaining agreement in a division of five Sandiganbayan justices, allegedly continued to block everything, believing the OSG was correct in questioning the entire process.
When Herrera learned of what the sentence was going to be, he reportedly said he would neither concur with nor dissent to the decision imposing prison years and a very huge fine against Garcia.
The Philippine star
