The Sandiganbayan Sixth Division has suspended Tarlac Rep. Noel Rivera from holding public office for 90 days amid his pending graft case over his alleged ties to a construction company that entered into contracts with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
In a resolution dated Sept. 29, the court said it issued the order because the requisites for suspension provided under Section 13 of Republic Act No. 3019, or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, have been met.
According to the provision, public officials facing criminal prosecution ‘under a valid information under this Act or under Title 7, Book II of the Revised Penal Code or for any offense involving fraud upon government or public funds or property’ shall be suspended from office.
‘[A]s long as the requisites for suspension under the said provision are met, the Court has the duty to order the suspension of the accused,’ the court said in the resolution.
‘The Court has neither the discretion nor the duty to determine whether suspension is necessary to prevent the accused from intimidating witnesses, tampering with evidence, or committing further acts of malfeasance,’ it added.
If Rivera is eventually acquitted, he ‘shall be entitled to reinstatement and to the salaries and benefits which he failed to receive during suspension, unless in the meantime administrative proceedings have been filed against him,’ according to RA 3019.
Based on the resolution, Rivera is currently charged with two counts of violation of Section 3(h) of RA 3019.
The section states that public officials are prohibited from ‘directly or indirectly having financial or pecuniary interest in any business, contract or transaction in connection with which he intervenes or takes part in his official capacity, or in which he is prohibited by the Constitution or by any law from having any interest.’
In a separate resolution on Sept. 29, the Sandiganbayan Fifth Division denied Rivera’s motions to quash the information in his two criminal cases due to lack of merit.
A motion to quash is where an accused assails the validity of a criminal complaint or information ‘for insufficiency on its face in point of law, or for defect apparent on the face of the information.’
The Fifth Division noted that the charges against Rivera stemmed from two government infrastructure contracts entered into by the DPWH and Tarlac 3-G Construction and Development Corp. during his term as representative of the third district of Tarlac.
One of the contracts involved the construction of a library in a university, and was worth P71.29 million. The other contract was for the construction of a road segment worth P141.49 million. Both were located in Tarlac.
Despite being a member of the House of Representatives, Rivera allegedly owned and maintained 54.84 percent of the total stock shares of Tarlac 3-G, while his wife owned another 45.09 percent, when it entered into government contracts.
In denying Rivera’s motion, the Fifth Division said the informations of the two cases sufficiently allege the elements of a violation of Section 3(h) under RA 3019.