Politics, other nightmares hound government prosecutors

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Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (Third of a series)

In marked contrast to the rapt attention accorded by thousands of Filipinos to the Senate impeachment trial of then President Joseph "Erap" Estrada, the plunder case against the detained former leader is attracting scant public interest. Yet, private prosecutor Arno Sanidad notes, the irony is that the public seems to have hardened on its singular demand of the prosecution team: convict Estrada.

The prosecution says it has the evidence to do precisely that. But even the prosecution admits that the trial has been going excruciatingly slow, and that political considerations as well as administrative roadblocks are proving to be hindrances to its progress.

"Time is a factor that cuts both ways," says Sanidad. "To the prosecution, time could mean getting more accused arrested, more witnesses. To the defense, time may weigh in on the accused or the change in administration could turn in their favor, or the witnesses could be bought or die, the evidence could be stolen or disappear."

Estrada lawyer Raymond Fortun, for his part, says the defense wants "a speedy but fair trial" but that "it is to the prosecution’s advantage that this case is not finished before 2004 — you can continue to make an issue of any person endorsed by Erap."

The prosecution, however, says its nightmare is that Estrada manages in 2004, the next presidential election year, to recover political ground and retake the numbers in Congress to have the plunder law amended or repealed altogether.

"In that case," concedes Sanidad, "Erap walks, or once convicted, a sympathetic president could pardon him."

At the very least, this early, some members of the prosecution panel are already preparing themselves to accept that many of Estrada’s cronies would go scot-free and that the government may never recover the bulk of his allegedly ill-gotten wealth.

As it is, private prosecutors have filed adverse claims on only three properties — the sprawling "Boracay" mansion in New Manila, Quezon City; the Wack-Wack homes being built for Laarni Enriquez and her children by Estrada, and the Forbes Park property bought as a wedding gift for Estrada’s daughter Jacqueline and her husband Manuel "Beaver" Lopez III.

The volunteer lawyers filed the claims on their own accord, after repeated reminders for the Ombudsman to do so yielded no results. Work on a planned civil suit for the expropriation of the properties has not started, and a year after the Arroyo administration came to power, the amount of monies restituted from the Estrada estate — said to be at least P30 billion, according to ex-Estrada crony-turned-nemesis Luis "Chavit" Singson — and that of his pals is zilch.

In the meantime, no more than four associates of the ousted president have been indicted with him in the plunder and graft cases that the Arroyo administration has filed with the Sandiganbayan. Many more remain at large or are simply not being hunted down or even queried by the government. One Estrada associate, Manuel V. Pangilinan, president of the telecommunications giant Philippine Long Distance Co. (PLDT), has already made some admissions on record that are damaging to the former chief executive, but the government has so far chosen to ignore him, although he could well be used as a possible witness against the the fallen leader.

Lawyers privy to the prosecution efforts in Estrada’s plunder trial cite two reasons for the Arroyo administration’s velvet-glove approach toward Pangilinan: political debt and fear.

Pangilinan had supposedly contributed a sizeable amount to help finance last year’s protest rallies that swelled into what is now called "EDSA II." Two, the government is said to be worried that if the Estrada cases snare too many business bigwigs, the impact could be bad on the economy.

Laments one volunteer lawyer: "It will never be justice for all, but the rule should be, let justice be done though the heavens fall."

On May 2, 2001, Pangilinan had submitted an affidavit in response to a plunder complaint filed by private lawyers Romeo Capulong and Leonard de Vera, and the groups Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption and Citizens’ Battle Against Corruption.

The complaint, filed last April with the Office of the Ombudsman, had named Pangilinan, along with Estrada, Jaime Dichaves, Mark Jimenez, Dante Tan, Lucio Co, George Go, William Gatchalian and other associates of the ousted leader as accused.

In his affidavit, Pangilinan acknowledged he had issued a P20-million pay-to-cash check for Estrada in November 1998. The check, supposedly paid out of Pangilinan’s "personal account" with the Asian Bank head office, was dated Nov. 5, 1999. It was among some 67 checks deposited in the "Jose Velarde" account with Equitable-PCI Bank that prosecution lawyers insist belong to Estrada.

From August 1999 to December 2000, when it was scooped clean during the Estrada impeachment trial, the account received total cash and check deposits of P1.2 billion. A certain "Kelvin Garcia" made 17 check deposits worth P175 million in all.

But Pangilinan described the check he gave as "a lawful election campaign contribution coming from my own personal funds." He reasoned that the amount was ""iven to a political party," though it had yet to be organized, and "not to a public officer nor President Estrada."

Pangilinan said he gave the check to Dichaves, who had been "tasked to solicit contributions for the organization of a new political party or coalition to support the administration of President Estrada in preparation for the general election campaign in 2001."

"Said election campaign contribution is not ‘a gift offered or given to a public officer’ by reason of his office," Pangilinan stated. "Neither was the money given ‘in the course of or in connection with any operation being regulated by or any transaction which may be affected by the functions of the office’ of any public official."

Curiously enough, the alleged election campaign donation was made a full 17 months before the May 2001 congressional and local elections. Pangilinan said he had not been issued an official receipt, as Dichaves had allegedly promised he would, a year after the elections were held.

Interestingly too, at the time Pangilinan made the campaign contribution, PLDT was facing three testy concerns on which Estrada’s intervention would have been necessary and useful.

On Nov. 16, 1999, Pangilinan met with Estrada at Malacañang to settle PLDT’s interconnection problems with the Ayalas’ Globe Telecoms Inc.

In December 1999, Pangilinan was summoned by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), an agency Estrada had interfered with, for a hearing on a PLDT stockholders’ motion questioning the alliance between Pangilinan’s First Pacific Group and Japan’s NTT Telecommunications Corp. The alliance took control of PLDT in November 1998, and of Smart Communications Inc. in September 1999.

Japan’s NTT joined the Pangilinan group’s purchase of a 17.2-percent controlling stake in PLDT for P29.7 billion but the purchase allegedly breached the 40-percent constitutional limit on foreign control and ownership of public utilities.

Also in December 1999, the First Pacific Group launched negotiations to buy into GMA-7 Television.

One of three other yet undisclosed affidavits of Carlos "Chuckie" Arellano, former president and chief executive officer of the Social Security System (SSS) under Estrada, implicates Pangilinan as well in four successive block sales by SSS of its PLDT shares, at the behest of the then president between September and November 1998.

According to Arena’s affidavit, the sales were made on Estrada’s orders, supposedly "para bilhin nila Manny (for Manny to buy)," before the First Pacific Group formally seized management control of PLDT.

But the government’s seeming "legal snub" of Pangilinan is hardly unusual. After all, people more blatantly identified with Estrada are still roaming the corridors of power without any fear of being collared by the government to answer for their past shenanigans.

One example is Mark Jimenez, the "corporate genius" behind the biggest merger and acquisition deals Estrada struck using state pension funds, who has not only offered himself as state witness but has also managed to be elected as a congressman of the Manila district that includes the Malacañang Palace area.

Tycoons Lucio Co and Lucio Tan, who were perennially at the elbow of Estrada, are still in business bigtime. Tan is also said to have now become a periodic visitor of President Arroyo at Malacañang.

Yet, says one private prosecutor, "there is no strategy adopted not to file cases against the cronies. Our desire is to hold everyone accountable, the cronies, the relatives, the accessories, or any other parties who allowed Estrada to plunder the economy."

But another admits, "There should have been restitution but there is nothing at all. They (the cronies) don’t disclose at all how much they benefited from the deals."

Ricardo "Toy" Nepomuceno Jr., head of the private prosecutors team, says, "We are waking up to reality. After EDSA, we were hoping that the fund needed for an efficient prosecution and for protecting the witnesses would come. The truth is, it has not."

He does commend Arroyo for keeping a comfortable distance from the prosecution panel. "We have not received any signals for us to slow down," he said. The Presidential distance, however, has also meant an utter lack of support from even the Office of the Ombudsman for the private prosecutors’ operations.

"We’d meet before and we had good dinners. Now it’s mamon and siopao," Nepomuceno said, adding that a newspaper columnist has had to launch a fund-raising drive for the volunteer lawyers.

But despite all the problems and frustrations they are encountering, the volunteer lawyers have elected to stay on as a "civic duty." One also stresses, "We’re still here because we don’t trust the Ombudsman (Aniano Desierto), absolutely not."

Sanidad even says he is hinging his decision to stay on as a volunteer lawyer on Mrs. Arroyo’s appointment of a competent, independent-minded and honest Ombudsman. Desierto is scheduled to retire this August.

"August is a referee for me," says Sanidad. He remarks that if only the Ombudsman would "do his job, you can actually have him run this case. You need a strong Ombudsman so you can pursue this case independently beyond 2004."

Still, he says that the plunder trial has made a few steps forward. "At least the trial has started," he says. "He’s (Estrada) detained — not humbled enough, but at least he’s depressed."

Another private prosecutor, Eduardo de los Angeles, agrees with Sanidad. But he says that there are administrative road blocks that stand in the way of the trial’s progress.

In his view, three big concerns must be settled. One is whether the plunder trial should remain with the Sandiganbayan’s third division or sent to a new special division. Another is whether the Supreme Court can be convinced to reconsider its ban on live broadcast media coverage of the trial.

"Our dream is to have tri-media coverage so the justices, the lawyers, the witnesses, the accused will behave," he says. The third is the question of Desierto’s successor as Ombudsman, a position that has a seven-year term.

Expectedly, the former president says his wish is to be free again. In a written response to questions from the PCIJ, he also said, "Regardless of who wins in 2004, I plan to vindicate myself and clear my name."

He commented that the Sandiganbayan system "seems to be in disarray" but "I shall not comment lengthily or liberally on this as I may be cited for contempt."

Estrada did say though that "I will not be broken. My detention now has made me richer in mind, in spirit, in conviction — This is a trial I will overcome and I am confident I will come out of this stronger."

"I believe I have to endure this because I respect the rule of law and would like to be given due process that has so far been denied me in the impeachment proceedings under the provisions of our Constitution," he said.

Asked if he would run for public office again, Estrada replied, "I consider myself retired from politics in 2004 because that is when my term as president ends — I have no intention of running for any position, not even for barangay captain."