Estrada: Foundation registered with SEC

The non-stock, non-profit foundation that received P200 million in bribe money last year from Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis "Chavit" Singson was registered last February with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), President Estrada said yesterday.

"This is very legal and you can see its registration papers at the SEC, and this foundation was approved since last February," Mr. Estrada said in his weekly radio-television program, "Jeep ni Erap."

"Of course the opposition will claim it has no record. Just yesterday, our corporate secretary showed to me all its papers. They are complete. Of course my ene-mies will not say anything good but only pure lies and misinformation," he said.

The Erap Muslim Youth Foundation is headed by Mr. Estrada’s brother-in-law, retired University of the Philippines chancellor Raul de Guzman, with lawyer Edward Serapio, an Estrada aide, as its corporate secretary.

Mr. Estrada said he set up the foundation to fulfill his election campaign promise to develop Minda-nao by sending Muslim student scholars for further studies in the United States.

"So that when they come back, they will no longer have a warlordism attitude but will be development-oriented. This is a long-range plan for the leadership in Mindanao," he said.

However, no student has yet benefited from the foundation because classes in the US start in September, Mr. Estrada said.

He said the foundation’s board members and trustees include the president of the Mindanao State University and a number of UP professors.

A check by the STAR the other day at the SEC and the Department of Social Welfare and Development showed that the foundation is not registered.

Officials of the SEC, including those in charge of corporate registration, could not be reached by the STAR for comment on the foundation the whole afternoon last Friday.

Estrada critics believe that the foundation is a front for money laundering.

Mr. Estrada yesterday maintained that Singson gave the money to Serapio without telling him where it really came from, and that the governor instructed Serapio not tell him about it.

"And that he placed the check perhaps to use it against me in order to prove he was really into jueteng. So he placed it without telling me and fooled our corporate secretary, attorney Serapio," he said.

Mr. Estrada said he learned only last month that the money was a bribe and that it came from jueteng operators. When he did, Mr. Estrada said he ordered Serapio to return the money but Serapio "failed to see the governor."

Asked by foreign journalists why he did not have Singson arrested on the spot for bribery, he said that was the job of the police and that he had no time for it because a President had many other things to do.

Mr. Estrada said he refused to accept the P200 million when Singson told him that it was a bribe from jueteng operators. After that, Singson then "ordered Yolly (Ricaforte, Mr. Estrada’s alleged jueteng accountant) to go to Attorney Serapio" and gave the money, Mr. Estrada said.

Singson arranged to have the money deposited in the bank account of the Erap Muslim Youth Foundation. Mr. Estrada maintained that he didn’t touch the money and that it is still intact.

In Marawi City, Mr. Estrada’s admission that the P200 million was funneled to a foundation for Muslims outraged thousands of Muslim residents who demanded for his resignation in a protest rally.

"The Muslims have never received any money from the President, particularly that which are coursed through the alleged Erap Muslim Youth Foundation," said rally organizer Acmad Lao. — With reports from Lino de la Cruz