IT WAS obviously a vindication for Cauayan town Mayor John Rey Tabujara after the Sandiganbayan Seventh Division cleared him of his graft charges.
Associate Justice Ma. Theresa Dolores Gomez-Estoesta, chairperson of the Seventh Division penned the decision dated September 7.
On the order, it said it acquitted the graft charges against the mayor due to the failure of the prosecution to prove the guilt against him beyond reasonable doubt.
The order also said the cash bond posted by the mayor of P50, 000 is ordered released, and the order issued by Sandiganbayan on July 18, 2016, is set aside. The Hold Departure order issued by the Bureau of Immigration was likewise recalled and cancelled.
It can be recalled that the mayor served a 90-day preventive suspension in 2017 for the complaint filed by May Joy Magbanua, a municipal health office nurse of Cauayan in 2010.
The nurse was transferred to a different hospital after the outbreak of dengue that affected 20 people and killed two persons in the town.
Magbanua cried foul following new assignment and appealed to the Civil Service Commission (CSC).
But the anti-graft court ruled, there is an absence of sufficient evidence showing that Tabujara unjustifiably held in abeyance the implementation of the order of reassignment of Magbanua and that the prosecution was not able to establish beyond reasonable doubt all of the elements of the violation of the law.
Having found that the prosecution has failed to establish the guilt of Tabujara by proof beyond reasonable doubt, his acquittal is warranted, the anti-graft court said.
It was indeed a vindication for the mayor. Now the challenge is how to serve more his constituents, albeit, the lost 90 days.