Sandigan junks Vicente Loot wife’s bid for retrial

MANILA, Philippines — The Sandiganbayan has denied the petition for a new trial of the cases filed against former mayor Maria Luisa Loot of Daanbantayan, Cebu, who was convicted of graft and malversation of public funds.

Loot and former councilor Samuel Moralde were sentenced to up to 15 years in prison. The cases stemmed from the grant of a loan amounting to P500,000 to RBA Quail Raisers Association (RBA) in 2007 when Moralde was its chairman.

The court said Loot entered into a memorandum of agreement with RBA, which was not accredited at the time to finance the quail egg farming operation of the municipal government as part of its livelihood project.

In her motion, Loot said she obtained new documents and has a potential witness to prove her innocence.

“The court finds that the document sought to be presented cannot qualify as newly discovered evidence to justify the holding of a new trial,” the anti-graft court’s seventh division said in a resolution promulgated on Sept. 11.

The seventh division said the documents that Loot intends to present are ”certified true copy of the original” and photocopy from the file of the municipal agriculture and engineering offices. 

“The documents were available before and during the trial considering that they were kept in the files of the municipal offices... Had accused exercised reasonable diligence in locating them, she could have easily obtained the... documents and presented them during trial,” the court said.

“In order for a particular evidence to be considered as newly discovered, it is essential that the offering party exercised reasonable diligence in seeking to locate the evidence before or during trial but nonetheless failed to secure it,” it added.

“The accused cannot be allowed at this time to introduce evidence which were in the first place available during trial,” the court said.

Loot’s husband Vicente is a retired police official in President Duterte’s list of drug personalities.

The family survived an ambush in May.