Serge to Vicky: Come home

Don’t sulk in some faraway land. Come home, confront your accuser and face the music.

Sen. Sergio Osmeña III gave this unsolicited advice yesterday to Victoria Toh, personal secretary and accountant of First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo, with whom she has been romantically linked.

Osmeña said Toh, who has been in Canada for more than two months now, should not hold press conferences through long-distance phone patches or leave her lawyer to answer the accusations against her.

"She should come home and take the witness stand. She should not hope for this controversy to die down and for us to forget all about it before she returns," he said.

He said if Toh was really bent on clearing her name, she should have returned.

It has been nearly a month since opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson made his "Incredible Hulk" exposé on Aug. 18 but Toh remains out of the country, Osmeña noted.

In earlier media interviews, Osmeña also alleged that Toh bought a house worth $850,000 in Canada despite the controversy the Pidal case has generated.

Toh’s lawyer in Manila, Gelacio Mamaril, dared Osmeña to prove that his client bought the purported property. Mamaril challenged Osmeña to present documents of the purchase instead of subjecting his client "to further suffering and humiliation through baseless accusations in the media."

"To continue destroying her reputation with repeated lies is nothing less than the height of injustice and persecution," Mamaril said.

If Osmeña will claim that he is still waiting for proof of the purchase, Mamaril said the senator should desist from repeating his claim in the media in fairness to Toh.

Mamaril said that instead of perpetuating the "lies" peddled by Lacson, Osmeña should condemn and investigate his colleague for presenting fake evidence before the Senate.

The lawyer said six of the seven banks Lacson had pinpointed in his second privileged speech to be harboring Pidal deposits under the name of Toh have denied the existence of the money.

"Senator Osmeña is barking up the wrong tree. It’s time for him to realize this," he said.

Lacson claimed earlier that besides using the false name Jose Pidal to launder funds, the President’s husband allegedly hid tens of millions in the bank accounts of Toh, her brother Thomas Jr., who is accompanying her in her Canada sojourn, and her brother-in-law Kelvin Tan.

Based on facsimile copies of bank documents, the accuser said the First Gentleman, Jose Pidal, the Tohs, and Tan had the same business address: 8th floor, LTA Building on No. 118 Perea st., Legaspi Village, Makati City.

The building is owned by the Arroyo family. The 8th floor is where the President’s husband holds office.

Victoria Toh has denied that she is a mistress and a dummy of her boss. She said Lacson has ruined her life.

Through her lawyer, she is scheduled to file a complaint this week with the Senate ethics committee against her accuser-tormentor. Also set to file a complaint is her boss, the First Gentleman.

Sen. Francis Pangilinan, ethics committee chairman, said Toh has to personally appear before his panel soon to defend her complaint.

In his revised affidavit, Eugenio Mahusay Jr., Lacon’s former star witness, has affirmed that he deposited in and withdrew huge amounts from the UnionBank accounts of Jose Pidal, Toh and Lualhati Foundation.

He said he knew Iggy Arroyo but that the First Gentleman’s brother never sent him to the bank to make any deposit or withdrawal. It was always Toh who gave him instructions, he said.

He affirmed that the President’s husband and Toh were carrying on a romantic affair, but that he did not call her "kalaguyo" or mistress.

Lacson said bank statements, photographs of the President’s husband and Toh, love letters, and other documents in his possession came from Mahusay.