The Sandiganbayan has found comedian-turned-politician Roderick Paulate guilty of graft and falsification of public documents in connection with the hiring of ghost employees in 2010 during his first year as a Quezon City councilor.

In a 130-page decision dated November 25, the anti-graft court said Paulate recommended the hiring of 30 individuals under job contracts who received wages from July to December 2010 despite the irregularities in their Personal Data Records.

The Sandiganbayan also noted that the prosecutors were able to prove the following:

• job order employees have no records of birth;
• none of the job order employees have requested a National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) clearance;
• the job order employees could not be located at their given residences;
• the job order employees were not registered voters of their respective barangays; and
• the job order employees have no record in the schools where they allegedly attended

"Given the above findings and in addition to the other pieces of evidence presented, the prosecution has well established that the entries in the Personal Data Sheet (PDS) of the job contractors were indeed falsified,” the court said.

In 2010, just a month after he won the elections, Paulate was removed from office after his alleged hiring of ghost employees from July to November of the same year.

The case against Paulate was officially filed by the Office of the Ombudsman in 2018, which said the actor-politician falsified a Job Order/Contract of Service, including the signatures of fictitious contractors to oblige the city government to allocate funds for their salaries.

Paulate and his co-accused, then-driver/liaison officer Vicente Bajamunde, were sentenced to six to eight years of jail time and perpetually disqualified from public office for their graft conviction.

Paulate and Bajamunde were also both sentenced to six months to six years in jail and pay a fine amounting to P10,000 for the eight counts of falsification of public documents under SB-18-CRM-0308.