Governor Degamo belies report he’s facing 11 graft cases

CEBU, Philippines - Negros Oriental Governor Roel Degamo yesterday assailed reports, circulated by his detractors lately, that he is facing another set of 11 counts of criminal cases before the Sandiganbayan, allegedly filed by Provincial Board Member Jessica Villanueva.

Degamo said these are resurrected and recycled issues that the Court of Appeals had already decided in his favor after reversing the Ombudsman suspension order.

These are practically the same cases, filed by June Vicente Gaudan before the 2013 elections, hibernated for two years and then resurrected before the May 2016 elections, said the governor.

After the 2016 elections, came the dismissal order of the Ombudsman until the CA reversed it in finding Degamo guilty only of simple misconduct for reasons that the governor had acted in good faith in disbursing the P480 million calamity fund, and with no criminal intent whatsoever.

Provincial Attorney Richard Enojo said these cases are exact duplications of cases filed by Gaudan, which was already resolved by the CA.

Enojo is now optimistic that the criminal aspect of the cases will reach the same fate with that of the administrative case because it has the same funding and the same issue. Only that the resolution of the Gaudan case came after the elections, earlier than the resolution of the case filed by Villanueva.

Degamo implemented the calamity projects to save lives, after a notice of cash allocation was issued by the Department of Budget and Management.

The CA had ruled there was no criminal intent on the part of the governor, and the projects “were implemented in good faith” because he was “forced to act the way he did because of the crisis situation at that time.”

Enojo contended there can be no criminal intent and bad faith on the part of Degamo because with the 50 percent calamity fund, the accomplishment of 64 percent was more than what the money can accomplish.

The conspiracy theory and giving due advantage to the contractors was also denied by Enojo, as he argued that if that was the case, the contractors would have also stopped the project when the report came out that the Special Allotment Release Order was withdrawn by DBM.

In the case of Big Foot, their project was completed 100 percent, Enojo pointed out.

Degamo, for his part, assured Negrenses he will remain strong and unfazed because these are politically motivated cases, the bottomline of which is to destroy his name. He added that he will not allow vested interests to rule the province.

Enojo was even surprised as to why the Ombudsman singled out the case of Degamo in an interview in Manila. (FREEMAN)