The Sandiganbayan has issued over the weekend warrants of arrest against two officials of the Department of Agriculture earlier indicted by the Office of the Ombudsman for three counts of falsification of public documents.
Ordered arrested by the Sandiganbayan First Division is DA-Region XII Assistant Regional Director Abusama Alid.
Also ordered arrested is Philippine Rice Research Institute Research Specialist and Ginintuang Masaganang Ani Program Director Frisco Malabanan.
Bail bonds amounting to P24,000 for each defendant were recommended by the prosecutors.
Associate Justice Diosdado Peralta had signed the warrants of arrest against Alid and Malabanan on Dec. 11, but they were served only last Friday.
The charges were filed against Alid and Malabanan on Oct. 1, 2007 when Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez approved the resolution of Ombudsman for Mindanao Graft Investigator and Prosecutor Milagros Macaraig.
Macaraig recommended the indictment of the two respondents.
The cases against Alid and Malabanan were filed after a complaint was lodged by Parido Pigkaulan, Legal Officer III of the Agriculture-Region XII Office.
Pigkaulan sought an indictment of the two for malversation of public funds which was overruled and converted to falsification of public documents.
Records showed that Alid was accused of altering his Philippine Airlines plane ticket and his post-travel report submitted in 2004, supposedly with the knowledge of Malabanan.
Alid denied tampering with the travel documents claiming that DA personnel had harbored ill-will against him and may have distorted the ticket and the travel report to cast him in a bad light. – Sandy Araneta