Cardenas: Nothing to do with mutiny

Looking haggard in his cramped cell in the PACER compound at Camp Crame, former Deputy Executive Secretary Ramon "Eki" Cardenas declared he is innocent.

"I had nothing to do with this so-called coup," he asserted. "If I had, would I have been foolish enough to sit in my home last Sunday night, waiting for the police or NBI to arrest me at 9 p.m.?"

Cardenas vehemently denied that he had permitted his former home at 2276 Paraiso street, in Dasmariñas Village, Makati, to be used by the military plotters. "That house was vacated by me more than two years ago, and I live at 1346 Palm Avenue, Dasmariñas Village."

He admitted he still owned the Paraiso house, and had rented it out briefly, but it had stood unoccupied for the past few months. "It has been locked up for months," he insisted, "and I haven’t visited it. In fact, I came back from the United States only last Wednesday morning (July 23) aboard the Philippine Airlines flight from San Francisco. If I were involved in a coup conspiracy, would I have come back from the US? I would have remained there and kept myself safely out of the hands of any retaliation or arrest. As a matter of fact, being out of the country would have been my best alibi!"

Cardenas was in a rumpled white t-shirt and shorts, with only a small double-deck bed in his cell, and no other furniture. As a result, we both had to stand while talking. There was a tiny air-conditioner in one corner. (His lawyers claim that the alleged "evidence," meaning the four automatic rifles, uniforms, backpacks, Magdalo red armbands, ammunition, etc. had been "planted" in the Paraiso house by police and NBI to frame Cardenas and thus link the conspiracy to his boss, former President Joseph E. Estrada).

Aside from his weakened state, lack of sleep, jet-lag, high-blood pressure, and inability to post bail for his temporary release, Eki did not complain about ill-treatment. He said he did not want his mother, whom he loves very much, to visit him in prison. (The 65-year-old Cardenas’ mother, Mrs. Rizalina "Ching" Cardenas is in frail health, and Eki said he did not want his mother to see him in his present condition) Eki is a bachelor. His brother Mike is abroad, and his sister Charito also lives in the US (he had gone there to attend a family wedding in her home). What he requested the authorities was for his nephews and nieces to be allowed to visit him.

I had been escorted, with permission from Malacañang, to visit Eki Cardenas yesterday morning by the Deputy Presidential Chief of Staff, Undersecretary Ricardo Alfonso Jr., who also knew Cardenas from their Ateneo days, and Philippine National Police chief Director General Hermogenes "Jun" Ebdane Jr.

The place where Cardenas is being held had been kept from the media up to yesterday. He is confined in the tightly guard detention compound of the PACER headquarters in Camp Crame.

(This is the Philippine Anti-Crime Emergency Response group). In the front portion of the compound is the office of PNP chief Ebdane.

If you want to know, this office was inherited from former PNP chief, now opposition Sen. Panfilo "Ping" Lacson. It used to be the headquarters of Lacson’s Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force or PAOCTF.

Cardenas, who was operated on for a serious heart condition (he underwent an angioplasty last September at the Heart Center), said that he had gone to the US, aside from that wedding of one of Charito’s children, for a heart check-up. Chief (General) Ebdane promised him he would allow a doctor "from outside" to check him up, aside from their own PNP doctors whom he assured me were already tasked to monitor the health of ex-Secretary Cardenas. He offered to transfer Cardenas to the PNP hospital (a clinic really) inside Camp Crame in the meantime, while advise from Malacañang is awaited on whether he could move to another hospital with better facilities, under guard, depending on the recommendation of competent physicians.

At present, on the other hand, Cardenas remains incommunicado, except for his lawyers who visit him in relays. (One of them was present when I arrived).

We were also accompanied by Police Director Eduardo S. Matillano, who was genial, but told me that his mouth had been "zippered." Ebdane told him cheerfully that he hoped he "kept his zipper on."