Press Secretary Charles P. Reyes Jr. said Gov. Benigno R. Fitial’s senior policy advisor Ray Mafnas told him that convicted sexual offender Luis Babauta wasn’t pardoned.
Mafnas confirmed to Variety in a separate interview that Babauta wasn’t pardoned nor was his sentence commuted.
“There was no pardon,” he said.
Reyes said Babauta used to be a physical education teacher.
During the 1990s, Babauta was convicted of sexually assaulting a number of boys he was coaching baseball.
The governor is carefully reviewing all requests for pardons and commutation of sentence based on certain criteria, Reyes said.
He added that as far as he knows, the governor has only commuted the sentence of Teresita Deleon Guerrero who was supposed to serve 90 days in jail for document fraud.
The governor’s critics said the woman should have been allowed to serve time in jail and that the commutation was given because her spouse is a supporter of the ruling Covenant Party.
But Reyes said the commutation was granted to Deleon Guerrero because it was her first offense and the crime involved wasn’t a violent one.
