RETIRED Major Gen. Carlos F. Garcia scored
his second straight court victory against the government
Thursday after the Sandiganbayan Second Division acquitted him
of a perjury charge alleging misrepresentations in his 1998
statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN).
In its 54-page verdict, the graft court cited
a "defect" in the prosecution's case saying the standard form
issued by the Civil Service Commission did not provide for the
disclosure of the assets owned by the defendant's spouse or
minor children.
This loophole, according to the court,
constitutes reasonable doubt that Garcia did not make an
intentional omission in his SALN but simply made an "honest
mistake."
"Whatever error was committed by the accused,
the same is attributable to the mistake in the preparation of
the SALN form by the CSC," the court ruled. "It may be pertinent
to state that where strict compliance of the law by the public
official or employe was made impossible or difficult by reason
of the acts or omissions of the one tasked to enforce the law,
then, the public official or employe must be relieved from
strict compliance, and any error resulting therefrom must be
permissively excused."
Garcia, erstwhile comptroller of the Armed
Forces of the Philippines, was accused of lying about the total
value of his assets, particularly his motor vehicles whose value
he placed at only P870,000.
Prosecutors claimed Garcia left out of his
SALN a Toyota Previa, a Mitsubishi L-300 van, and a 1997 Honda
Civic with a combined value of P1.51 million. The last two cars
were registered in the name of his wife Clarita Depakakibo-Garcia.
The court said the SALN form used by Garcia
failed to distinguish between exclusive and conjugal assets of
the public official and his/her spouse.
"Perjury cannot be willful where the oath is
according to belief or conviction as to its truth. A false
statement of a belief is not perjury. Bona fide belief in the
truth of a statement is an adequate defense. A false statement
which is obviously the result of an honest mistake is not
perjury," the court said.
Garcia was earlier acquitted by the Third
Division on a similar perjury case on May 22, 2006.
Two other perjury cases remain pending
against him at the court's First and Fourth Divisions, and he is
also being tried on a plunder charge before the Second Division.
He was also named defendant in two ill-gotten
wealth lawsuits now lodged with the Fourth Division, along with
his wife and three children who were accused of helping him
conceal alleged his unlawfully acquired assets. - Peter J.
G. Tabingo
