Ricaforte returns to US today

We may have seen the last of her.

Vital jueteng bribery scandal witness Yolanda Ricaforte is scheduled to leave this morning for Los Angeles, California apparently to evade further grilling by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee.

A check with the passenger counter of Cathay Pacific Airways at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport confirmed that Ricaforte is booked as a passenger on CX Flight 906 which is leaving for Los Angeles at 11:15 this morning.

Ricaforte, wife of Tourism Undersecretary Orestes Ricaforte, was forced to return to the country from San Francisco last Oct. 23 to testify in a Senate hearing as a key witness in the jueteng payoffs as exposed last month by Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis "Chavit" Singson.

Ricaforte left for the US on Oct. 5, the same day suspected Pampanga jueteng lord Rodolfo "Bong" Pineda sneaked out of the country and a day after Singson’s exposé.

Pineda, who has been summoned by the Blue Ribbon Committee, has not returned since and there are now moves to extradite him from the US where he is reportedly undergoing a hair transplant.

Ricaforte is suffering from high blood pressure, according to her doctors. She was confined at the Medical City in Pasig on the day she arrived and testified in a wheelchair the following day.

The Blue Ribbon Committee chaired by Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. is not yet through with Ricaforte’s testimony. Hearings resume Nov. 13.

It was not immediately known yesterday whether Pimentel and his committee members were aware of Ricaforte’s flight to the US today.

In a related development, Singson’s lawyer former Rizal Rep. Igmidio Tanjuatco said efforts by Malacañang to cover the footprints of President Estrada in the jueteng scandal only heightened public outcry for his resignation.

"It is very hard to twist the truth with lies," Tanjuatco said, adding that public clamor for the President’s resignation mounts each time Palace spin doctors tried to shied him away from Singson’s allegations.

Tanjuatco said Ricaforte, who Singson tagged as the President’s auditor of jueteng bribery funds, was clearly caught lying during her two-day testimony before the Senate. — Rey Arquiza, Jaime Laude