Construction firm's directors lose perjury case
The directors of the multi-million peso construction company Pre-Stress International (PSI) lost the perjury case they filed against Iloilo businessman Hanson Cembrano last year after the court granted the latter's bid to quash the complaint.
In a three-page order dated March 30, Judge Victorino Maniba of the 13th Municipal Circuit Trial Court junked the case filed by PSI directors Chester Jardiolin, Jerry Jardiolin, Zinon Setias, Dennis Jardiolin and Eddie Canuto against Cembrano.
The complaint stemmed from Cembrano's testimony that the PSI directors connived in stealing the stocks, valued at P3.8 million, which he had entrusted to PSI for safekeeping in its compound in Cabugao Sur, Pavia sometime in late 2001.
Because of that statement, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) filed a case of qualified theft against the PSI directors and its eight employees before the Iloilo Regional Trial Court on January 15, 2002.
However, Provincial Prosecutor Theresa Enrique-Gaspar, in her decision dated August 31, 2005, upgraded the case to robbery after finding probable cause against PSI director Jerry Jardiolin and employees Jose Rheuben Clanis, Jimmy Yee, Antonio Galfo, Rico Biloria and Edgar Hojilla.
The case against Setias, Chester Jardiolin, Eddie Canuto, Dennis Jardiolin, Sheryl Justalero, Melchor Labordo, Pio Labordo and six others had been dismissed.
The robbery case is now pending at the Iloilo Regional Trial Court Branch 35, and the accused are out on bail.
Due to the dismissal of the case, PSI directors Setias, Chester Jardiolin, Jerry Jardiolin, Dennis Jardiolin and Eddie Canuto took to task Cembrano for testifying that they connived in stealing his stocks and sued him for perjury.
But Judge Maniba ruled Cembrano's statement was only an opinion. "Thus, being an opinion, the same could not be used as basis for a crime of perjury," Maniba wrote.
"The statement of (Cembrano) that the board of directors of PSI was responsible for taking his stocks inside the PSI compound is a reasonable assumption considering that PSI is a corporation and can only act through its board of directors. He thought at that time that the Board of Directors of PSI was in cahoots with each other," the judge also wrote.
He added: "Unfortunately, ...the investigating judge who conducted the preliminary investigation and the reviewing prosecutor... found the evidence insufficient and recommended the dismissal of the case against the complainants (in the perjury case)."
"However, a member of the board of directors of PSI, Jerry Jardiolin was charged with robbery. This belies the claim of the complainants that the statement made by (Cembrano) in his sworn statement is false and perjurious," Maniba concluded.
Cembrano, who owns Golden Iloilo Delta Sales Corp., found his stocks missing on January 10, 2002 which consist of various steel bars like angle and flat bars, GI pipes, Mercury GI, corrugated sheets, plain sheets and motor oil, among others.
Two days later, NBI operatives recovered the missing items in Lapuz as they were piled inside a 20-foot container and on a dump truck without a plate number. The truck and trailer of the van were registered to C&J Trading Services Inc. whose majority owners are PSI directors Chester Jardiolin and Jerry Jardiolin.
Those apprehended with the missing stocks were Jimmy Yee, Antonio Galfo, Rico Biloria and Edgar Hojilla, all PSI employees.