MANILA, Philippines Former military budget officer Lt. Col. George Rabusa filed with the Department of Justice (DoJ) yesterday plunder charges against three former chiefs of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), 12 other military officers, a resident auditor, and an accountant.
The three former AFP chiefs were identified in the complaint as Diomedio Villanueva who served from March 17, 2001, to May 17, 2002; Roy Cimatu, May 18, 2002, to Sept. 10, 2002; and Efren Abu, Oct. 29, 2004, to Aug. 15, 2005.
Former military comptrollers Lt. Gen. Jacinto Ligot and Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia were also named in the plunder complaint.
The other respondents were Col.Cirilo Tomas Donato, Col. Roy Devesa, Major Emerson Angulo, retired Maj. Gen. Hilario Atendido, Brig. Gen. Benito de Leon, retired Lt. Col. Ernesto Paranis, Capt. Kenneth Paglinawan, Col. Gilbert Gapay, Col. Robert Arevalo, and Maj. Gen. Epineto Logico, and former Intelligence Service of the AFP (ISAFP) resident auditor Divina Cabrera, and accountant Generoso del Castillo.
Villanueva, Cimatu, Ligot, and Garcia had earlier denied pocketing any money intended for the AFP.
Attached in Rabusa’s complaint were the affidavits of witnesses Perla Valerio and Lt. Col. Romeo Mateo.
Rabusa said he has two boxes of evidence against those he charged with plunder before the DoJ.
He said his complaint zeroed in on the “series of conversions of funds in the AFP” in which about a billion pesos had been misappropriated or misused.
Rabusa was presented as a surprise witness and testified in the Senate investigation into the plea bargain agreement between Garcia and the Office of the Ombudsman.
He alleged that there was the tradition of giving “pabaon” (send-off gift) to outgoing AFP chiefs of staff and “pasalubong” (welcome gift) to successors. He said the traditional gifts were in the millions of pesos.
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