Ador yanked from witness protection

Alleged former police agent Angelo "Ador" Mawanay has been dropped from the government’s Witness Protection Program for swindling several intelligence agents and businessmen of some P2 million worth of undelivered cellphones.

Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño confirmed Mawanay was removed from the government’s protective custody before the holidays and several agents of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) would likely sue him as well.

"I signed the termination order. We did it last week, before the holidays. It’s because of estafa, the cellphone scam at the ISAFP," Zuño said.

"They (ISAFP agents) are planning to file estafa charges but we will give him time to find another place. That is, if he can find somebody who could give him protective custody," Zuño added.

The chief state prosecutor could not give an estimate of how much Mawanay supposedly swindled from the businessmen and the intelligence agents but said the supposed scam involved "big money."

Sources said Mawanay allegedly reneged on the delivery of some P2 million worth of cellphones which the agents and businessmen had already paid for but Mawanay said he owes them only P700,000.

Mawanay’s lawyer Roberto "Argee" Guevarra said the termination order was unfair because no charges have yet been filed against his client.

"This is a very painful gift the government gave to Ador this Christmas," Guevarra said. "Senator (Panfilo) Lacson might just get back at him anytime now. He has no security, no protection whatsoever."

Mawanay was placed under the WPP after ISAFP chief Col. Victor Corpus gave credence to his claims that he was employed by Lacson in several criminal activities.

Before being elected to the Senate in May, Lacson was chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF).

Mawanay, who was then known only as "Ador," claimed in June that Lacson and his top lieutenants were involved in the still unsolved kidnapping-murder of publicist Salvador "Bubby" Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito in November last year.

He was interviewed by investigators of the PNP and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in June but both agencies dismissed his allegations as incredible.

Police first expressed doubt about Ador’s testimony after he claimed that former President Fidel Ramos used a telephone to commission PAOCTF official Senior Superintendent Michael Ray Aquino to kidnap and kill Dacer.

However, another PAOCTF official, Senior Superintendent Glenn Dumlao, who confessed to being the project officer of the Dacer kidnap-slay, claimed it was Malacañang under jailed former President Joseph Estrada who ordered Aquino to kill Dacer and recover some damning documents against Estrada.

The ISAFP, however, apparently believed Ador’s claim that Lacson employed him in selling smuggled meat loaf, diamonds, drugs and that he was also involved in the kidnapping and supposed murder of a still-missing casino employee, Edgar Bentain.

Ador charged Lacson and his lieutenants of pursuing plots to topple the Arroyo administration and even claimed personal knowledge of multimillion-dollar overseas bank accounts Lacson allegedly used to launder his supposedly ill-gotten wealth.

Mawanay has been under the ISAFP’s protective custody since July, shortly before the Senate began a probe on Lacson’s alleged ill-gotten wealth and supposed involvement in criminal activities.

But in one Senate hearing, Mawanay claimed that Senate Majority Leader Loren Legarda bought some P8.9 million worth of smuggled cellphones from him.

He also accused broadcast journalists Noli de Castro, now a senator, Korina Sanchez and Ted Failon, now a congressman, of having accepted bribes from Lacson in exchange for positive television exposure.

In De Castro’s case, he said the money was placed in a shoe box which he delivered to De Castro, then a news anchor of television network ABS-CBN, who was on board a Mitsubishi Pajero at a gasoline station on Tomas Morato St. in Quezon City.

But De Castro denied the charge and said he did not even own a Pajero.

For his "unsavory" accusations, the Senate cited Mawanay in contempt and ordered him detained until he produces documents to prove that Legarda actually purchased 1,000 contraband cellphones worth P8.9 million in December 1998.

However, he was released after a weekend after civil rights lawyers protested that the detention was a violation of Mawanay’s rights.

In subsequent Senate hearings, however, Mawanay failed to produce any evidence to support his allegations against Lacson aside from his own sworn statements.

He said he was still in the process of gathering documents to back up his accusations and, except for a PAOCTF identification card issued to him when he was still an agent, Mawanay could not present any other evidence to establish his supposedly deep connection with the defunct anti-crime agency.

He told The STAR in July that his links with the PAOCTF started in 1998 when the elite police unit was formed by Estrada.

He claimed that prior to that, he used to operate a Manila video shop located beside another shop owned and operated by a certain Toyo, whom Ador described as a policeman assigned to the Western Police District (WPD).

When his video shop went bankrupt, Ador said Toyo introduced him to Lacson, then PNP director general and PAOCTF chief, who allegedly needed a fence for canned "Maling" luncheon meat that Lacson supposedly smuggled into the country.

Ador said his Maling fencing operation earned him a profit of P200,000 a month and soon expanded into electronics and cellphones.

He also claimed to have been used as a courier to deliver illegal drugs from PAOCTF to customers, among whom were Estrada’s son Jude, a Korean national and a certain Wong based in Binondo, Manila.

He claimed he was first involved in a major crime when he unwittingly accompanied Aquino, another PAOCTF official, Superintendent Cesar Mancao, and several others to the Silahis International Hotel only to find out later they would be kidnapping casino worker Bentain.

Bentain was a video camera operator at Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) casinos in Metro Manila and had leaked in 1998 a videotape showing Estrada, then a presidential candidate, gambling on a high-stakes table.

Ador claimed he saw a still-living Bentain already buried inside a drum with only his head protruding. He claimed Bentain’s face was swollen, his lips bloodied and was begging for his life from his supposed policemen-kidnappers.