Genuino and sons, Anthony and Erwin, were directed to appear before the DOJ for preliminary investigation to be presided by Investigation Prosecution Mary Jane Sytat on Thursday.
They were also ordered to submit their answer to the charges filed by Pagcor President and Chief Operating Officer Jorge Sarmiento.
Also summoned were former Pagcor Senior Vice President for Corporate Communications Edward King and Los Baños City Administrator Mai Mai Tado, also an official of the Genuino-owned Trace Computer College.
Sarmiento accused the respondents of conspiring in diverting the 300-metric-ton rice donation by a Japanese company to the Philippine government worth P1.4 million and P1.7 million worth of operational funds intended for distribution to victims of Typhoon Frank in 2008 to the campaign of Anthony and Erwin.
Anthony won as mayor of Los Baños City while Erwin lost in the Makati City mayoral race.
Genuino allegedly secured the donation of Thai rice from Aruze Corp., one of the proponents for Pagcor’s Entertainment City project.
It was discovered that of 10,000 sacks of donated rice, only 6,500 ended up with the Department of Social Welfare and Development for distribution to typhoon victims while 3,500 were “withdrawn, delivered and ended up at the Pagcor warehouse in Imus, Cavite.”
Pagcor’s investigation also showed that that the remaining 3,500 sacks were replaced with a cheaper variety of rice by virtue of a barter agreement entered into by Pagcor with a private rice mill.
It alleged that several hundreds of bags of rice were repacked in sacks bearing the images of Ton (Anthony) and Erwin Genuino as electoral candidates during the 2010 elections.
The DOJ earlier issued a hold-departure order against the Genuinos and their co-respondents to prevent them from leaving the country considering that there are three other graft cases filed against them.
The first two involved the production of the movie Baler in 2008 and the alleged diversion of funds to Batang Iwas Droga (Bida) Foundation, which ran but lost in the party-list elections with Genuino’s daughter, Sheryl Genuino-See, as its first nominee.
Another complaint was also filed with the Ombudsman about the allegedly anomalous release of funding assistance worth P34 million to the Philippine Amateur Swimming Association Inc. beginning 2007.
