P86-M highways scam convict finally nabbed

CEBU - The long arm of the law has finally caught up with Antolin Jariol Jr.

The former Cebu City councilor, sentenced to a total of 276 years in connection with the sensational P86-million public highways scandal in 1976, was finally arrested the other night at his home in Barangay Guadalupe after being on the lam for nearly two decades.

Jariol was arrested by agents of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force. He was the subject of an arrest warrant issued by Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Francis Garchitorena in 1996.

The 46-year-old fugitive was convicted for 23 counts of estafa through falsification of public and commercial documents, with each count equivalent to a prison term of 12 years.

The arrest was made following an anonymous tip to the PAOCTF which promptly placed the former Guadalupe barangay captain under surveillance.

The four-year-old warrant against Jariol had gone through the rounds of various law enforcement agencies like the Cebu City police, the National Bureau of Investigation and police intelligence without getting served.

Jariol reportedly fled to the United States to elude arrest following his conviction in the mid-1980s for defrauding the government through several ghost projects, along with a number of other people, including highways officials. He had long been rumored to have surreptitiously returned to the country.

Jariol had been the barangay captain of Guadalupe since 1981 until the time of his conviction. He went on to become the president of the Association of Barangay Councils and thus, became the barangays' representative in the city council.

PAOCTF chief Teofilo Vina said Jariol tried to elude arrest by leaping out from the back of his house, but was subdued by his four agents, led by Reynan Oliva, who came to serve the warrant.

Jariol told reporters he was actually arrested twice between 1996 and 1997 by the Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Division of the Cebu City police, but was released upon allegedly paying P100,000 each time he was arrested.

Vina said the PAOCTF will be investigating this allegation.