Padaca ready to post bail

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines – Newly appointed Commission on Elections (Comelec) commissioner Grace Padaca is ready to post bail in connection with a warrant of arrest the Sandiganbayan issued against her over a multimillion-peso graft case.

Padaca said her appointment to the Comelec has made it necessary for her to rethink her strategy concerning the arrest warrant issued by the anti-graft court last May 22 in connection with her acts while she was Isabela governor in 2006.

Padaca is facing graft and malversation charges for her alleged role in the grant of a P25-million hybrid rice project in 2006 to a non-government organization that allegedly failed to account for the funds.

The Sandiganbayan had set a P70,000 bail for both cases in exchange for her temporary liberty.

Padaca said that for the past four months she has had an overnight bag handy, ready for her arrest anytime.

Padaca, 48, said in her Facebook account that her decision then not to post bail was her way of “protesting the process by which the case was decided upon and the warrant of arrest issued.”

“Things may have to change now (after the Comelec appointment) and I may need to post bail and let the judicial process take its course,” said Padaca, who had earlier sought relief from the Supreme Court regarding the graft case.

Padaca was charged before the Sandiganbayan for allegedly favoring a nongovernmental organization, Economic Development for Western Isabela and Northern Luzon Foundation Inc. (EDWINLFI), based in Roxas town, that was awarded a P25-million hybrid rice project.

The fund was part of the P35-million loan from the Development Bank of the Philippines for the province’s Priority Agricultural Modernization Project or Priority Hybrid Rice Program for local farmers.

Former congressman Santiago Respicio, an ally of Padaca’s political rival the Dy clan, filed the graft case against the former governor.

Respicio claimed that no one influenced him to file the case at the Office of the Ombudsman.

Respicio said that contrary to Padaca’s claims, the memorandum of agreement between EDWINLFI and the provincial government did not result in significant increase in rice production in 10 towns where it was mandated to operate by the agreement.

In her defense, Padaca said the disbursement of the fund was aboveboard, having the imprimatur of the provincial board that was then headed by Vice Gov. Ramon Reyes, who earlier cleared her of any irregularity.

Padaca, a former broadcast journalist, lost to now Gov. Faustino Dy III in her re-election bid in 2010.

Padaca made history when she defeated the governor’s elder brother, then governor Faustino Jr. via a landslide during the 2004 elections and ended the Dy family’s dominance of Isabela politics since the 1970s.

Padaca was re-elected by a slim margin against another Dy scion, former governor Benjamin Dy, in the 2007 polls.

Sandiganbayan Legal Division chief Ruth Ferrer told The STAR that Padaca should be arrested since the anti-graft court’s Fifth Division issued arrest orders against her.

“There is a subsisting warrant of arrest against her. The warrant is valid,” Ferrer said.

Ferrer said the petition for certiorari filed by Padaca before the Supreme Court does not suspend the warrant of arrest that has been issued against her.

- With Michael Punongbayan, Sheila Crisostomo, Delon Porcalla, Sandy Araneta