Ex-Quezon City Roderick Paulate found guilty of graft and falsification of public documents
The Sandiganbayan has found former Quezon City councilor and actor Roderick Paulate guilty of graft and falsification of public documents over the hiring of “ghost” employees during his term in 2010.
In a decision dated November 25, the Sandiganbayan said Paulate allowed the hiring of 30 job contract employees who have no records of birth, could not be located at their given address, were not registered voters of their respective areas, no record in schools they claimed they attended, and did not have any record of National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) clearance request.
“Accused made it appear that the 30 job contractors rendered services as field inspectors, office aides and district coordinators from July to December 10 when there were no such job order personnel who worked and recieved salaries during said period because they are fictitious,” the Sandiganbayan 7th Division said.
The ghost employees received salary from the Quezon City Government from July to December 2010.
“Given the above findings and in addition to the other pieces of evidence presented, the prosecution has well established that the entries in the Personal Data Sheet (PDS) of the job contractors were indeed falsified,” the anti-graft court said.
“The defense did not give any logical explanation for the glaring inaccuracies of the entries in the PDS or adduce any evidence to show the truth thereof,” it added.
Paulate was sentenced to six to eight years of imprisonment and perpetual disqualification from public office for their graft conviction and six months to six years in jail and a fine of P10,000 for the eight counts of falsification of public documents.
Paulate’s former driver and liaison officer Vicende Bajamundo faces the same graft conviction but was acquitted in the falsification charges. He was the one who supposedly collected the salaries of the fictitious job contractors.
The news trended on Twitter, with many netizens saying that Paulate was only getting his comeuppance for ardently supporting President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. The Marcos family has been accused of widespread graft and corruption starting from the time of the elder strongman and allegedly owes P203 billion in unpaid estate taxes.
