Mawanay escapes, returns to Senate

Amid a public furor, the Senate blinked yesterday, ordering the release of alleged witness Angelo "Ador" Mawanay from detention.

By the time the release order was issued, however, Mawanay had already tasted freedom, courtesy of two truckloads of military intelligence agents who swamped the Senate grounds yesterday afternoon to fetch him.

Mawanay later returned after furious senators discovered his "escape." But he also filed arbitrary detention charges before the Ombudsman against eight senators led by Majority Leader Loren Legarda and Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. for his weekend detention.

For her part, Legarda said she would file perjury charges against Mawanay.

Senate security officials said the "sheer numerical superiority" of the agents of the Intelligence Services of the Armed Forces of the Phi-lippines (ISAFP) forced them to allow Mawanay to leave past 2 p.m. without the knowledge of the senators who had ordered his detention.

Mawanay’s "escape" infuriated Senate President Franklin Drilon who ordered an investigation and demanded the resignation of retired Brig. Gen. Leonardo Lopez, the Senate sergeant-at-arms.

Lopez tendered his resignation and took full responsibility for the "untoward incident" even as he thanked the Senate leadership for his brief appointment to the post.

But after the furor, Mawanay re-appeared at the Senate and took responsibility for the incident, which he blamed on miscommunication and lack of coordination.

Mawanay claimed he had no plan of "escaping" and only wanted to keep a 3 p.m. appointment for a confession with Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin.

He left his detention room with his wife and children and three barong-clad men who claimed to be ISAFP agents and boarded a green L-300 van.

"Wala naman akong balak tumakas, hiyang-hiya nga ako kay General Lopez. Hindi ko na nga tinuloy ang plano ko (I had no plan of escaping. I am so embarrassed at General Lopez). I cannot confess with this kind of situation," Mawanay said.

He said he was only two blocks away from the Cardinal’s Villa San Miguel residence on Shaw Boulevard in Mandaluyong City when he was called back to the Senate by his lawyer Argee Guevarra.

A check with the office of Sin, however, showed Mawanay did not have an appointment with the prelate yesterday or any day this week.

On his return to the Senate, Mawanay’s Marine guards said they only allowed Mawanay to leave his detention room after Guevarra claimed that Drilon and Lopez approved the alleged trip to Villa San Miguel.

But when Senate security personnel realized that there was no formal order to release Mawanay, the security guards tried to run after him but his vehicle had already sped away.

Despite the incident, however, the Senate ordered Mawanay released to the custody of ISAFP chief, Col. Victor Corpus, who will be held responsible for bringing his ward back to the Senate on Thursday.

A joint hearing of three Senate committees ordered Mawanay held over the weekend after he failed to prove damning allegations against Legarda and Sen. Noli de Castro.

He accused Legarda of buying P8.9 million worth of contraband cellphones and De Castro of accepting a P3 million bribe from former national police chief turned Sen. Panfilo Lacson.

Mawanay’s detention, however, raised legal questions, in particular the very possible violation of his civil rights.

Ador files raps vs 8 senators

Mawanay also filed yesterday arbitrary detention charges against Legarda, Pimentel, Senators Robert Barbers, Rodolfo Biazon, Tessie Aquino-Oreta, Robert Jaworski, Noli de Castro and John Osmeña.

Legarda, for her part, asked the Senate to immediately release Mawanay from Senate custody even as she reiterated that the allegations against her were "outrageous and impossible."

In a privilege speech delivered yesterday, Legarda insisted that she will file perjury charges against Mawanay in a criminal court.

"I will transfer the venue of my complaint against Mr. Mawanay to the courts of justice in order to seek vindication," Legarda said.

"I value my honor and integrity even more than life itself. I will not allow anyone to besmirch my reputation. Mr. Mawanay has tainted my honor," she said.

"Yet I wish to be fair to him and that he be afforded every opportunity to prepare for his defense in court and to produce the documents required by the hearing committees," she added.

Pimentel, on the other hand, explained the Senate’s primary concern in ordering the Senate sergeant-at-arms to detain Mawanay was to determine the truth behind his accusations against Legarda and De Castro.

"Our interest in Ador is his accusations against Legarda and De Castro and he should be able to prove them. Otherwise, he faces legal sanctions," he said.

Pimentel also said he and other senators were not "turning the table" on Mawanay and his patron, military intelligence chief Col. Victor Corpus, to protect another senator but to test their evidence.

"Hindi dahil gusto kong apihin si Ador o baligtarin si Corpus (Not that I want to bully Ador or turn the table on Corpus). We want to test if their evidence has sufficient basis, if their evidence is enough to dismiss or jail one senator," he added.

To secure Mawanay’s immediate release, Guevarra said they might also file a petition for the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus before the Supreme Court soon.

"Such detention is patently arbitrary and illegal as there is no legal or justifiable ground for the same," Mawanay said in his three-page complaint.

"I did not do anything that tended to obstruct or interrupt the committee investigation nor did I refuse to answer a question asked of me or perform any act that may be considered disrespectful or offensive," he emphasized.

"The alleged contemptuous act was committed in answer to a question posed by Senator (Legarda) who is obviously not the Senate as an institution," Mawanay said.

Legarda stressed, however, that she simply wanted to test Mawanay’s credibility.

She said Corpus had already told her of Mawanay’s allegation one month before the joint hearing and brought up the matter herself to see if Mawanay would say the truth.

"Mr. Mawanay claims that in the space of a few minutes, I bought a thousand cellphones which had no service warranty or any guarantee that each set functioned properly and that I immediately issued a check for P8.9 million," she said.

"Any transaction of this nature is definitely not a bargain. Imagine, buying P8.9 million worth of contraband cellphones from a total stranger without even inspecting or testing a single set," she added.

She also noted that the cellphone brand and model Mawanay claimed he sold to her in December 1998 was at the time not yet available in the local market.