By JEFFREY G. DAMICOG
National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents arrested former Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) chairman Camilo Sabio over graft and malversation charges filed against him before the Sandiganbayan 4th and 5th divisions.
The 82-year-old Sabio was taken to the NBI on Tuesday afternoon where he was booked and detained.
The former PCGG chief have to pay a bail bond of P80,000 before the Sandiganbayan for his provisional release.
Apart from the charges, Sabio was convicted last June by the Sandiganbayan 1st Division which found him guilty of two counts of grant over a vehicle lease deal worth P12.13 million.
The Sandiganbayan 1st Division sentenced Sabio to suffer 12 to 30 years of imprisonment.
Court records showed that the PCGG forged a deal with UCPB Leasing and Finance Corporations for the lease of vehicles in 2007 for P5.4 million and in 2009 for P6.7 million.
However, the anti-graft court ruled “Sabio was motivated by a dishonest purpose or some moral obliquity and conscious doing of a wrong when he subjected the PCGG, and the government, to an expense which was essentially unnecessary.”
The court said the PCGG already owned 27 vehicles at that time, the deals did not undergo the required the public bidding, and there were no allotment for the leases under PCGG’s approved budget.