DAVAO CITY — The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) last Tuesday arrested an employee of the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) for falsifying the payroll register of the athletes and coaches and credited their allowances into his own bank account.
NBI Officer-In-Charge Eric B. Distor identified the subject PSC employee as Paul Michael Padua Ignacio.
The case stemmed from a letter sent by PSC seeking assistance for the investigation of suspected fraud committed by a PSC employee.
The letter revealed that Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) sent a letter to OIC Merlita R. Ibay of the PSC regarding the unusual payroll transactions credited to the account of Subject Ignacio.
Ignacio is an employee under the PSC-Personnel Office who is tasked to prepare the payroll for the monthly allowance of qualified coaches and athletes and forward the same to the LBP.
Ignacio included the names of unqualified coaches and athletes in the payroll and put his own payroll account number as the account number of the unqualified coaches and athletes.
Based on initial verification, Ignacio has already embezzled Php 14,448,254.35 from August of 2015 up to May of 2020.
On July 14, 2020, operatives of the NBI-Special Action Unit (NBI-SAU) proceeded to the PSC Office to conduct an initial investigation.
It was discovered that for the month of June 2020, Ignacio included in the payroll three (3) unqualified coaches and three (3) unqualified athletes with a total amount of Php 450,150.00 to be credited into the subject’s payroll account.
On the same day, with sufficient evidence on hand, NBI-SAU arrested Subject Ignacio in his office at the PSC in Manila.
The NBI also seized the laptop and desktop unit of the Subject issued by the PSC for forensic examination.
Ignacio was charged for violation of Article 310 in relation to Article 309 (Qualified Theft) through violation of Article 172 in relation to Article 171 (Falsification of Public Documents), all under the RPC, and for violation of R.A. 10175 (Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012).-Newsline.ph
