Roderick Paulate Is Sentenced To Prison For The “Ghost Employee” Blunder

The Sandiganbayan has found former Quezon City Councilor Roderick Paulate guilty of bribery and falsifying public documents related to the hiring of “ghost” employees while he was in office.

In a decision from November 25, the Sandiganbayan said that Paulate was allowed to hire 30 job contract workers who had no birth records, couldn’t be found at the address they gave, weren’t registered to vote in their areas, didn’t go to the schools they said they did, and didn’t have any record of an NBI clearance request.

From July to December 2010, the Quezon City government paid the ghost workers’ salaries.

The anti-graft court said, “Given the above findings and the other evidence presented, it is clear that the entries in the personal data sheet (PDS) of the job contractors were in fact false.”

“The Defense did not give any logical explanation for the glaring errors in the PDS or bring any evidence to show that they were true,” it said.

The two were also told to pay the government P1.109 million with interest of 6% per year until the debt was paid off in full.

Paulate was found guilty of lying by a public officer and given a sentence of six months to six years in prison and a P10,000 fine.

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