Former Philippine Forest Corporation (PFC) President and Chief Executive Officer Rodolfo Noel “Jun” I. Lozada Jr. whose conviction for graft had been affirmed by the Supreme Court (SC) surrendered to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) last Thursday, June 2.

Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra confirmed Lozada’s surrender after the Sandiganbayan issued last May 30 an arrest order against him and his brother Jose Orlando, a former PFC consultant and whose graft conviction had also been affirmed by the SC.

Guevarra said, “eventually he (Lozada) will be transferred to the national penitentiary to serve his sentence.”

But Guevarra said he does know when Lozada will be transferred to the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa City. “It depends on the order of commitment issued by the court,” he said.

In the meantime, Guevarra said that Lozada will remain in NBI custody.

Lozada’s graft conviction was in connection with the notice of award to his brother of the 6.5 hectares of public land under the agency’s “Lupang Hinirang” program in 2007.

The SC, in a resolution made public last March 23, modified the jail term imposed by the Sandiganbayan on the Lozada siblings to an “indeterminate penalty of imprisonment of six (6) years and one (1) month, as minimum, to ten (10) years and one (1) day, as maximum.”

Graft charges were filed by the Office of the Ombudsman against the Lozada siblings on Dec. 29, 2011. Rodolfo Noel was charged with two counts while his brother was indicted for one count. Rodolfo Noel was acquitted in one of the two charges.

The siblings appealed their cases to the SC but their appeal was denied.

The issue on the notice and award of public land under the “Lupang Hinirang” program of PFC was taken up during the 2008 Senate investigation into the alleged anomalous $329-million deal with Zhong Xing Telecommunications Equipment International Investment Limited (ZTE) of China for the Philippines’ National Broadband Network (NBN) project in 2007.

Rodolfo Noel appeared before the Senate investigation as the star witness against the government’s transaction during the time of then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Arroyo filed a demurrer to evidence in the graft case filed against her. The demurrer was granted by the anti-graft court and the ruling was tantamount to the acquittal of Arroyo of the charges.

In 2021, the SC affirmed the 2016 Sandiganbayan’s acquittal of former President Arroyo of the graft charges on the ZTE transaction.