Ex-PNP chief Razon requests bail after one year in lock-up

Avelino Razon official photo

Following over a year of detention at the Philippine National Police  (PNP) Custodial Center in Camp Crame, former PNP chief Director General Avelino Razon has requested that the Sandiganbayan grant him bail.

Razon’s counsel noted in a memorandum handed over to the Sandiganbayan Fourth Division that the evidence presented against him by the prosecution in the recently concluded bail hearings was insufficient for the charges to stick.

The former police director has been held since August 27, 2013, on charges of malversation, relative to the anomalous repair of police armored vehicles in 2007, amounting several hundred million pesos.

According to his lawyers, Razon was not yet PNP chief when the project was in its conceptual stages; nor was he a part of of the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) at the time that the project was awarded to the contractor.

The project was – as the defense pointed out – started by the National Police Commission (Napolcom) in June 2007, when it issued a resolution ordering the Directorate of Logistics (again, not Razon) to recall all the V-150s units assigned to the Regional Mobile Groups (RMG) and the Specal Action Force (SAF) for inspection and rehabilitation.

The lawyers recounted further that Oscar Calderon was still PNP chief at that time; as such, the Special Allotment Release Order (SARO) and Notice of Cash Allocation (NCA) were issued by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to Calderon, not Razon.

The counsel noted that Razon can only be held “personally responsible for the inspection and acceptance of the goods and services delivered pursuant to the Purchase Orders and Work Orders,” and that he was regrettably included in the charges “for having signed certain purchase orders, work orders and disbursement vouchers in connection with the repair and refurbishing of 28 units of V-150 Light Armored Vehicles (LAVs).”

The lawyers stressed the lack of a conspiracy motive, and that there was likewise no proof that the former PNP chief “received any of the proceeds of the funds intended for the repair and refurbishment of the 28 V-150 LAVs.”

“P/Dir. Gen. Razon’s signature on the purchase orders, work orders and disbursement vouchers is not enough to implicate him as a conspirator in any alleged anomaly or corruption behind the repair and refurbishing of the V-150 LAVS,” they emphasized.