MANILA — The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has filed corruption charges before the Office of the Ombudsman against an official of Duty Free Philippines Corp. (DFPC) in Iloilo City who allegedly malversed close to PHP1 million.
In a statement Thursday, NBI spokesman Ferdinand Lavin said the charges against Mark Lester Terem Toledo, the supervisor of Duty Free-Iloilo were filed before the graft buster’s office last July 24.
The NBI had been requested by DFPC Chief Operating Officer Pelagio A. Angala to investigate Toledo after peso sales amounting to PHP979,362 on four dates — June 6, August 24 and December 14, 2017 and January 23, 2018 — was not deposited to Duty Free’s accounts in Landbank.
Toledo, the NBI said, “indirectly admitted his wrongdoing by depositing PHP200,000 to the Landbank account of DFPC as partial payment to the undeposited sales he took”.
Toledo also failed to honor a subpoena from NBI Western Visayas Regional Office (NBI WEVRO) regional director Max B. Salvador to clarify matters.
Instead, his mother Merlinda appeared in his behalf and later claimed she had no knowledge of the whereabouts of her son.
“The elemental requirements of malversation of public funds is sufficiently established . He has custody or control of the peso sales of DFPC ,which are public funds.His deliberate failure to report to work since February 21,2018 to satisfactorily account for the undeposited sales created the legal presumption that he indeed misappropriated the said public funds,” the NBI said. (Benjamin Pulta/PNA)
