The Sandiganbayan has junked the appeal of an ex-official of the Bureau of Correction and a private defendant convicted of graft over an anomalous sugar deal worth over P10 million in 2000.
In a seven-page resolution, the Sandiganbayan Fifth Division turned down the appeal filed by ex-BoC official Benjamin Bongon and Roger Ang, who were found guilty of violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act (RA 3019) and were sentenced to up to seven years behind bars by the Cebu Regional Trial Court Branch 23 in December 2017.
The lower court, likewise, ordered the accused to pay a P10,859,063 fine. The graft case involved the 28,000 bags of unmanifested imported sugar carried by M/V Affy that the BoC seized in 1999 and was later auctioned in 2000.
Ang, the proprietor of Consumer Enterprises, won the bidding and deposited P21 million, equivalent to the price of 28,000 bags.
However, a composite team reported to Bongon, the erstwhile chief of the Auction and Cargo Disposal Division of the BoC-Port of Cebu, that only 13,753 bags of sugar were offloaded from the vessel and subsequently acquired by Ang.
This prompted Ang to refund P10,859,063, corresponding to the surplus of his initial payment of P21,341,600.