By Czarina Ong Ki Former Daanbantayan mayor Ma. Luisa Judal Loot of Cebu has been found guilty of graft and malversation by the Sandiganbayan Seventh Division due to the irregular P500,000-loan given by the municipality to the RBA Quail Raisers Association (RBA). Loot, together with RBA Chairman Samuel P. Moralde, was sentenced to suffer the indeterminate prison term of six to eight years for the graft conviction and two to seven years for the malversation conviction. Loot was also perpetually disqualified from holding any public office. Loot and Moralde were also jointly made liable to pay back the municipality P500,000 with interest at the rate of six percent per annum reckoned from the finality of the decision until the amount is fully paid. On February 28, 2007, then-vice mayor Loot allegedly conspired with Moralde when she gave him financial assistance in the form of a loan without first securing the authority from the Sangguniang Bayan of Daanbantayan. The loan was released to RBA even if the RBA was not an accredited organization at the time of the execution of the memorandum of agreement (MOA). Loot tried to argue during the trial that there was nothing in the Local Government Code which provides that prior accreditation is required before financial assistance could be granted to the RBA. At the same time, she said that the concurrence of the municipal council was all that was needed for the loan grant. However, the anti-graft court was not of the same mind. It was worthy of the court to note as well that Loot did not conduct periodic monitoring and evaluation to ascertain the operation of Moralde's quail egg farming. Moralde, for his part, failed to refute the prosecution's claim that RBA was not accredited or show that RBA was eligible for financial assistance from the municipality. The court likewise stressed that Loot acted with evident bad faith and manifest partiality when she signed the MOA with RBA even without the approval of the municipal council. Moralde further stated that the loan was used to buy quail chicks and feeds, while a portion of it was used to defray operating expenses. However, there was no supporting evidence provided by Moralde to prove so. "Considering that the whereabouts of the subject fund have not been accounted for and nothing happened to the project, the Court is inclined to conclude that the loaned amount was not actually used for its intended purpose," the decision read. Worse, Moralde failed to pay back the loan even though "there was no reason that he could not pay," the court said. Moralde tried to reason that Typhoon Frank struck Cebu in June 2008, so his quails were killed. But the court said the loan was released to him on February 28, 2007, and he was supposed to make his first payment on January 2008 - way before the disastrous typhoon took place. "In that span of time, RBA is expected to make/gain profit because accused Moralde himself claimed that amount the farm products, quail-raising generated income for the farm," the decision read. The 31-page decision was written by Associate Justice Zaldy Trespeses with the concurrence of Chairperson Ma. Theresa Dolores Gomez-Estoesta and Associate Justice Georgina Hidalgo.