THE Ombudsman has ordered the filing of charges against a former ambassador to Nigeria with the Sandiganbayan for the alleged misuse of the Assistance to Nationals Standby Funds amounting to $95,856.
The fund is supposed to be used for the repatriation of abducted Filipino workers in 2007.
In a 24-page resolution, Acting Ombudsman Orlando Casimiro indicted former ambassador Masaranga Umpa on four counts of malversation of public funds or violation of Article 217 of the Revised Penal Code based on the information filed by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).
Records indicate that Umpa was appointed as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Federal Republic of Nigeria by then-President Joseph Estrada and was retained in a holdover capacity by former President Gloria Arroyo.
In the complaint, the DFA alleged that of the $174,000 sent on February 7, 2007, for the safe release and repatriation of 24 Filipino seamen and crew members of Baco Liner II and another Filipino, a total of $95,856.08 were paid to nonexisting or highly irregular transactions as evidenced by fabricated documents.
One transaction was made to appear as payment to the Wellington Hotel Limited in Warri Delta State, Nigeria, covering the cost of six hotel rooms and meals of 11 police escorts, but the transaction was supported by allegedly fabricated documents, the complaint said.
The Filipino seamen were turned over by Nigerian authorities to Umpa and then-Foreign Undersecretary Esteban Cornejos Jr. in the afternoon of February 13, 2007, but the hotel bills indicated breakfast and lunch charges amounting to $1,565, which could have not been incurred because the seamen were turned over in the afternoon.
Upon verification, the Nigerian hotel accountant Adeleke Osinuga cited that the hotel did not issue documents presented to them for certification and are therefore forged.
Documents gathered further show that hotel bills were not stamped “paid” and charges were billed on the alleged date of departure; cash vouchers were not signed by the regular administrative officer; and the post exceeded its authority to engage the services of 11 escorts when only six escorts were allowed.
It was also learned that the embassy did not rent any room at Hotel Presidential (HP) from February 18 to 28, 2007, for the accommodation of the police escorts; the six police escorts stayed at a hotel other than HP; and that no escorts were left behind at Port Harcourt. But these expenses amounting to $20,944 were presented using allegedly bogus documents.
The complaint also claimed that the supposed “package deal” with HP for the room accommodation of the police escorts from March 1 to 12, 2007, never took place; all documents have been fabricated; the hotel never received any payment from the Philippine Embassy since the hotel never billeted such group, and that there were no guests registered as representatives of the embassy. Umpa also presented documents to show that a helicopter and van were chartered to ferry the Filipinos to allegedly pad his claims for use of the ATN funds. No such transportation was used, the Ombudsman said.
“In the instant case, it is very clear that the respondent [Umpa] had been very negligent in his duty of counterchecking the supporting documents for the cash advances for several transactions which he, himself, was involved in,” the resolution added.
“He [Umpa] committed the acts of malversation through abandonment or negligence, by approving ‘for payment’ for the nonexisting transactions…,” it added.
