The Supreme Court (SC) has turned down for being moot a petition filed by one of the senior Department of Agriculture (DA) officials indicted in the cases in connection with the PHP700-million fertilizer fund scam uncovered by the Senate in 2005.

In a resolution uploaded online on March 23, the SC’s First Division dismissed “for being moot and academic” the petition filed by retired former DA Regional Executive Director Roger C. Chio who died two years ago at the age of 74 questioning the Sandiganbayan’s decision to proceed with trying him in the cases.

Noting that the petitioner passed away during the pendency of his petition, his “death rendered his petition before this court, moot and academic as there is no longer any justiciable controversy, whose resolution would be of practical value and use,” the tribunal said.

Chio, along with other provincial officials of DA and lawmakers had figured in dozens of charges arising from fact-finding investigations conducted by the Office of the Ombudsman following Senate investigations in 2005 which looked into the alleged misuse in the previous years of funds intended to implement the Farms Inputs and Farm Implements Program (FIFP) of the Department of Agriculture in the total amount of PHP728 million.

In January 2019, the Sandiganbayan’s First Division dismissed two of the cases docketed as SB-17-CRM-1633 to SB-17-CRM-1634 involving alleged anomalies in the procurement of PHP3 million worth of fertilizers out of the PHP728 million approved by former DA Undersecretary Jocelyn Bolante representing an allotment for then Davao del Sur Representative Douglas Cagas.

The Sandiganbayan in the said resolution dismissing the cases said the prosecution had taken too long in bringing the case to court from when it was first investigated adding that the “prosecution cannot be allowed to justify the long delay to conclude the investigations in these cases with the almost boilerplate allusions to the purported steady streams of cases flooding the Office of the Ombudsman and the numerous lawyers of review which it took before the cases could finally find their way to the dockets of the court,”.

The court added that the primary source of evidence, the audit of the PHP728 million had been available as early as 2006 but the fact-finding investigation dragged on for more than eight years until the complaint could be finally filed in 2013.

The Sandiganbayan, trying a different batch of cases docketed as SB-19-CRM-0053 to 0056 filed on April 2019, however, said it was premature for Chio to similarly cite the alleged delay prompting Chio to appeal to the Supreme Court (SC). (PNA)