The Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) filed on Tuesday, July 29, a case of plunder against dismissed Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) administrator Arnell Ignacio in connection with the alleged anomalous sale of P1.4 billion worth of property near the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).

Aside from Ignacio, DMW Secretary Hans Leo Cacdac said two former OWWA deputy administrators were also slapped with violation of the Republic Act 7080, or the Anti-Plunder Act, and violation of Article 217 of the Revised Penal Code, or Malversation of Public Funds.

“With respect to the investigation that we had concerning the P1.4B land acquisition deal at OWWA, we filed a case before the Office of the Ombudsman against the former administrator and two former deputy administrators in relation to the deliberate bypassing of OWWA Board of Trustees under highly questionable circumstances that amount to violations of various laws,” said Cacdac in a press briefing on Tuesday.

He said a group of sellers of the property, composed of around six people, were also included in the charge sheet.

Based on the plan, the P1.4 billion land acquisition was aimed at building a “Halfway House” that would accommodate a huge number of returned OFWs similar to the mass repatriation and quarantine efforts during the pandemic.

Part of what the OWWA bought inside the property were 52 condominium units.

These condo units were part of the property evaluation of the Landbank of the Philippines, the reason why the selling price reached P1.4 billion.

The incident led to the sacking of Ignacio. He was replaced by Patricia Yvonne Caunan.

Cacdac said there were serious procedural lapses in the procurement of property, particularly in not informing the OWWA Board of Trustees of the land acquisition deal.

Transparency issue is also the main problem since according to Cacdac, there were agreements and contracts that were not fully disclosed to the OWWA Board of Trustees which Cacdac heads.

Cacdac said they uncovered several anomalies in the transaction, the recent was the result of the investigation wherein checks were already signed prior to the signing of the Deed of Sale of the property.

“We discovered there were vouchers and checks signed prior to the Deed of Sale. So that’s among the other things that complete;my bolstered and supported our case. There are few others but this is the biggest that we unearthed at the course of the investigation,” said Cacdac.

“The P1.4 billion was paid to the seller. That’s precisely our point in including the seller in this particular situation,” he added.

Keeping the OWWA Board of Trustees blind on the transaction was unusual considering that two of the deputy administrators are long employees of the OWWA whom Cacdac said are very familiar with the processes in the agency.

“This matter is in line with the President’s call for accountability in public service,” said Cacdac.

“On the side of the DMW, this is one case where we are clearly holding high ranking public officials accountable for their actions in violation of the anti-graft and corrupt practices laws,” he added.