Duterte's staff gets 14 years for stealing P2 million

One of the most trusted staff of Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte was meted a maximum of 14 years in jail for stealing more than P2 million from the vice mayor's vault.

Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 16 Presiding Judge Emmanuel Carpio sentenced Hezelene S. Osiones to prison mayor to reclusion temporal after finding her guilty of carting away Duterte's personal money amounting to P2,031,932.

Osiones entered a guilty plea, which was used by the court as sufficient ground to hold her guilty of the crime.

Carpio ordered Osiones to pay Duterte P2,005,732 instead of P2,031,392, since P26,200 was recovered from her when she was arrested last May 26 by San Pedro police inside a Jollibee store in Dipolog City.

In his affidavit, Duterte said that in March and May this year, he handed P500,000 and P1,500,000, respectively, to his executive assistant, Christopher Go, to pay for attorney's fees and other legal expenses in relation to election protest filed against his daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in Manila and various cases filed against him before the Office of the Ombudsman and Sandiganbayan.

On March 11, Duterte also handed to Go P31,932 cash for cancer patients. Due to other administrative works, Go turned over the money worth P2,031,932 to Osiones for safekeeping.

On May 25, Duterte instructed Go to get P500,000 from the vault inside his office and send it to Manila-based lawyers as payment for their legal services.

Upon Duterte's instruction, Go opened the vault and found out that the money was missing.

Witnesses testified that Osiones did not report for work that day.

Osiones has been working at the City Hall for nine years.

By Arianne Caryl N. Casas