COPA verifies Lacson’s Cayman Islands bank de

The Council of Philippine Affairs (COPA) said yesterday it has verified reports that controversial Sen. Panfilo Lacson maintains a secret account holding over $20 million in at least one bank in the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean.

COPA head Pastor Saycon asserted, however, that he was bound to an agreement of confidentiality regarding his discovery.

"First of all, I need to protect my source. Secondly, in order to acquire records to this, you need (to go through) legal processes. Thirdly, I signed a non-disclosure document," Saycon said.

He explained that the prohibition prevents him from testifying or submitting pertinent documents to the ongoing Senate inquiry on the criminal accusations against Lacson.

"This is why they (Lacson’s camp) are saying that we cannot prove it ... that we should produce evidence to the allegations because they know that there cannot be any," Saycon told the "Bulong-Pulungan" media forum at the Westin Philippine Plaza.

Saycon said he was allowed to look at the records

of Lacson’s rich bank deposits in Cayman Islands, adding that United States authorities were monitoring the account.

He said he was shown debit and credit transactions on the Lacson account with the unidentified bank, deposited under the name of a US holding company.

Saycon also said the account has been in existence for over four years, with the latest transaction made about one month and a half ago, or about the same time military intelligence chief Col. Victor Corpus made public disclosure on Lacson’s alleged secret foreign bank accounts.

Like jailed former President Joseph Estrada, Lacson uses the holding company to avoid detection of his secret bank accounts, Saycon said.

The three Cayman Islands, lying south of Cuba, have a combined area of just 102 square miles. Many Western banks opened branches on Grand Cayman, a free port, in the 1970s when it became a tax-free refuge for foreign funds.

Saycon said at least 17 holding companies, some of them identified with Estrada, were under investigation for possible involvement in money laundering.

The COPA leader said he was in the US from Aug. 7 to Sept. 1 to undergo medical treatment and to meet with his informants.

He said his dealings with his sources were "unofficial" and that further revelations could jeopardize the probe being conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Saycon said his group, consisting mostly of non-civic organizations that supported last January’s popular uprising that ousted Estrada, independently made the verification in order to determine their course of action.

The discovery of Lacson’s foreign bank account would serve as a launching pad for protest actions to be staged on Sept. 14 and 21 to jibe with the anniversary of the declaration of martial law by the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1972.

The Sept. 14 rally, expected to be attended by at least 19 of COPA’s allied non-government organizations, will be held at the Supreme Court (SC) compound, with each participating group presenting a particular issue.

"Generally, it will not be against any particular senator. It will be against narco-state," Saycon said.

He said they expect to muster as many as 5,000 participants on Friday and about 30,000 for next week’s rally to be staged in front of Malacañang.

COPA said they chose the High Tribunal for Friday’s protest action because it was the SC that was hearing the appeal on the Kuratong Baleleng case where over 70 police officials and men, including Lacson, were indicted for alleged summary execution of 11 suspected members of the robbery-holdup gang.

Saycon pointed out that once a case has been officially filed against Lacson, the FBI would be encouraged to share vital information that may enable government prosecutors to pin down Lacson on criminal charges such as money laundering, wiretapping and involvement in drug trafficking.

Lacson petitioned the SC to stop a Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into his alleged involvement in kidnapping cases which was also the object of a similar probe by the Office of the Ombudsman.

Lawyer Sigfrid Fortun, Lacson’s legal counsel, said the prosecutors failed to justify why they had to conduct a similar investigation even as the charges have been filed with the Ombudsman.

Fortun also took exceptions to the DOJ’s argument that the offenses were different because the case before the Ombudsman stemmed from Lacson’s performance of his official functions, while those filed before the justice department arose from the complaints of the victims’ relatives.

"Since the alleged abduction and murder of the victims were carried out pursuant to or on the occasion of Operation Cyclops as recounted by Mary (Rosebud) Ong, it is undeniable that they were committed in relation to official duties and responsibilities," Fortun explained.

The DOJ argued, however, that the presence of three sworn affidavits "makes the NBI complaint much different from the complaint filed before the Ombudsman."

The DOJ was referring to sworn statements submitted by Chong Kam Fai, Zeng Kang Fang and Queena Yuet Yuet.

Chong is a brother of kidnap-for-ransom victim Chong Hui Ming, while Zeng was himself a victim of kidnapping along with his brothers Zeng Jia Xuan, Hong Zhen Quiao and James Wong.

Queena is the wife of murder victim Wang Kam Chong.

"Simply put, there is absolutely no reason for the duplication of the proceedings with the Ombudsman," the defense lawyers said in their 39-page petition, saying the prosecutors even failed to explain why there was a need to deputize them as investigators.

On Aug. 30, the SC directed Lacson and Manila Judge Hermogenes Liwag to explain why the kidnap-for-ransom cases handled by the DOJ should not proceed.

Liwag earlier ordered a halt to the investigation of the case by the DOJ.

Lacson and Liwag, along with Senior Superintendent Michael Ray Aquino, were given 10 days to comment on the prosecutors’ argument that they cannot be barred from investigating the cases because they had been deputized by the Ombudsman.

Solicitor General Simeon Marcelo and the DOJ, represented by Senior State Prosecutor Leo Dacera III, have asked the SC to nullify the June 25 freeze order of Liwag which prohibited government lawyers from investigating Lacson and 13 other respondents.

The DOJ and the Office of the Solicitor General charged that Liwag committed grave abuse of discretion when he issued the restraining order and permanent injunction against the state prosecutors.

In their 30-page motion for review, Marcelo and the state prosecutors insisted on the legality of their deputization by the Ombudsman.

"All prosecutors, inclusive of state prosecutors, are deputized as Ombudsman prosecutors. There is no doubt that the investigating prosecutor investigates offenses involving public officers and employees," they said.

They accused Liwag of ignoring the legality of the deputization process by the Ombudsman.

The prosecutors maintained that the suits filed with the DOJ for alleged drug trafficking, qualified bribery, wiretapping and kidnapping-for-ransom were unrelated to the respondents’ official duties, allowing the state prosecutors the power to investigate the complaints.

Cited as respondents in the cases were Chief Superintendent Reynaldo Acop, Senior Superintendents Aquino, John Campos, Teofilo Andrada, Francisco Villaroman, Chief Inspectors Avelino Abogado, Meddel Fone and Dennis Ventura, Senior Inspector Julius Mana, lawyer Denn Tuvera, and civilians Ricardo Watanabe, Ralph Tuvera and Joey Ramirez.

They were tagged for alleged complicity in the kidnapping Chinese nationals Zeng Jia Xuan, Hang Zhen Quiao, Zeng Kang Fang and James Wong, as well as in the kidnap-slaying of Chong Hui Ming and Wong Kam Chong.

Corpus, commander of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, has also accused Lacson, formerly chief of the Philippine National Police and concurrent head of the controversial Presidential Anti-0rganized Crime Task Force, of maintaining rich dollar accounts in Hong Kong, Canada and the US.

Corpus has also presented before a Senate inquiry some witnesses who testified on Lacson’s alleged involvement in criminal activities.