Garcia plea bargain deal OK’d under Arroyo—OSG records

The plea bargain agreement between retired Major General Carlos Garcia and the Office of the Ombudsman was approved by the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court during the last two months of the Arroyo administration. This information was revealed in the motion for intervention filed on Wednesday by the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) before the anti-graft court, belying earlier claims by the Ombudsman and the Office of the Special Prosecutor that the agreement is still awaiting confirmation. (See: Govt asks Sandiganbayan to allow intervention in Garcia plea bargain deal) As cited by the OSG motion, the Sandiganbayan Second Division had already promulgated a resolution approving Garcia’s plea bargain deal as early as May 4, 2010—less than two months before President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s term ended. The OSG likewise revealed that the plea bargain deal was approved by the Ombudsman on February 25, 2010, endorsed to the Sandiganbayan through a joint motion for approval on March 16, 2010, and was approved by the anti-graft court two months later. Due to the timing of the plea bargain deal’s approval, Justice Secretary Leila De Lima said there is reason to believe that the Garcia-Ombudsman agreement was another “midnight deal." “While we cannot be definitive about it sans the full facts of the complete picture surrounding the circumstances, there is reason to suspect that it was a midnight deal," she said in a text message to reporters on Wednesday. Garcia, who has earlier been charged with money laundering and plunder for allegedly amassing P300 million in bribe money while in military service, was allowed to post bail and later temporarily released after he pleaded guilty to lesser offenses of direct bribery and knowledge of unlawful transactions. (See: Sandiganbayan allows bail for ex-AFP comptroller) Ombudsman kept mum Although the plea bargaining agreement has been a done deal since last year, the Office of the Ombudsman kept mum on the matter even until last month. In a phone interview with reporters last December 10, Special Prosecutor Wendell Barreras-Sulit refused to confirm or deny the existence of the agreement with Garcia, saying that the deal was still awaiting the Sandiganbayan’s nod. The OSG’s motion, however, belied Barreras-Sulit’s claim, insisting that the Ombudsman had let Garcia as well as his wife and sons off the hook seven months earlier. In the OSG’s motion, Solicitor General Jose Anselmo Cadiz asked the Sandiganbayan to nullify the agreement it approved in May 2010, to recall the grant of bail to Garcia, and to suspend further proceedings in the plunder and money laundering cases pending the resolution of its motion for intervention. —With reports from Sophia Dedace, Andreo C. Calonzo/JV, GMANews.TV