Blanquita: Lacson not yet off the hook

Filipino-American businesswoman Blanquita Pelaez said yesterday opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson is not yet off the hook.

Lacson faces arrest, Pelaez said, if he fails to pay her damages arising from a 1996 handcuffs supply contract she had with the Philippine National Police (PNP).

She claimed Lacson blocked payment for the handcuffs contract after she refused to follow his instructions, issued in 1999, to fabricate charges against three former interior and local government secretaries and 123 PNP officers whom he considered his enemies.

In a related development, the lawyer of First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo dared Lacson to return from abroad and present evidence to prove Mr. Arroyo opened secret bank accounts under the alias Jose Pidal to launder money.

Pelaez said she came to the Philippines to belie Lacson’s statements that he won the case after California Superior Court Judge James Richman, in a ruling dated Aug. 19, set aside the default judgment amounting to $3 million for lost wages and damages which a lower court awarded her on Jan. 19 after Lacson failed to appear before the US court.

Richman merely remanded the case to the Alameda County court to determine the correct payment for the contract, as he rejected Lacson’s argument that he is not under the jurisdiction of the US courts, she said.

Pelaez explained that because of this, she has returned to the country to gather evidence on Lacson’s properties so she could show the US court that the senator is financially capable to abide by a court order for her compensation.

She showed photographs of Lacson’s houses in Parañaque and Ayala Alabang in Muntinlupa City, which she said she would present along with the records of the senator’s bank accounts in the US before the Alameda County court in an Oct. 23 hearing.

Pelaez noted that the bank accounts of Lacson and his wife, Alice de Piero Lacson, have been accepted as evidence by the lower court and could no longer be denied by the senator.

She said she also got hold of Lacson’s statement of assets and liabilities for the year 2002, and noted that two of the houses Lacson allegedly owns and the US bank accounts were not reflected in it.

"These (photos) were given to me by a friend, a reliable source. However, I am not sure if these are his or not. So if I would bring these to the US it is up to Mr. Lacson to prove whether this is his or not (before the US court). I don’t have to prove (his ownership of) these houses. That is how it is in the US," Pelaez said in a press conference.

She said she is not yet through gathering evidence but noted that after the Oct. 23 hearing, Lacson will also be asked to appear and present all his assets and properties before the court for evaluation.

"Should he fail, I’m sorry but the court will issue a warrant of arrest if he does not show up on that day (to be set by the court)," Pelaez said. "If he does not pay… he will be arrested once he enters San Francisco, California."

She added that she will also present other evidence "of what he did to me and now because there is a new rule in the US (on default judgments), that he is going to pay me nine times the amount of whatever the judge will say."

Pelaez stressed her actions are "just a plain collection" and not due to politics. She said Lacson gave the case political color when he mentioned in his motion for reconsideration before the lower court that he is a senator in the Philippines and one of the "mentioned contenders to win election to the Office of the President in this country."

In her pleadings before the lower court, Pelaez included documents showing that Lacson, when he was PNP chief, remitted in five tranches — from Nov. 13 to Dec. 26, 2000, or at the height of the Estrada impeachment trial — a total of $444,299 to the US bank account of his wife.

Pelaez also submitted documents allegedly showing that Lacson’s wife had an account at the California branch of the Bank of American totaling $456,000. Mrs. Lacson supposedly used funds from this account to purchase Toyota Sequoia SUVs for $50,000 each in December 2000.

The documents also reportedly showed that Lacson himself allegedly opened several bank accounts in his own name at the Bank of American branch in Chula Vista, California, which in October had a balance of $285,133.

Pelaez also claimed that Lacson’s assets are allegedly in a firm called Orient Light Freight International Inc. LLC in Panorama City, California that was set up by Mrs. Lacson in March 2001 with a certain Rosalinda Tiu and Robert Co.

The documents supposedly showed that Mrs. Lacson remitted from her bank accounts in March 2001 a total of $150,000 to Orient Light’s Wells Fargo account in Portland, Oregon. As of April 2001, the company supposedly had an account balance of $200,000.

Richman, in his Aug. 19 ruling, refused to set aside the default a lower court entered against Lacson in a lawsuit involving a 1996 handcuff supply contract for the PNP.

At the same time, however, Richman set aside the default judgment amounting $3 million that the lower court awarded Pelaez after Lacson’s failure to appear before the US court.

Lacson said he refused to pay more than P20 million in taxes and duties for the handcuffs "because the original contract called for her to pay taxes and duties."

He said the contract was signed by former PNP chief Recaredo Sarmiento and revised during the time of Sarmiento’s successor Roberto Lastimoso. Pelaez tried to collect during Lacson’s watch.

Richman, reversing the court’s decision, also ruled that Pelaez failed to prove that she suffered emotional distress.

Tit For Tat

Pelaez also said that Lacson wanted her to file trumped-up charges against three former chiefs of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) — now Sen. Robert Barbers, Epimaco Velasco and Ronaldo Puno — as well as 123 PNP officials whom he considered his enemies.

She said some of the PNP officials Lacson wanted charged were former PNP chiefs Recaredo Sarmiento, Edmundo Larozza, Roberto Lastimoso, Santiago Aliño and Leandro Mendoza; National Police Commission officials Rogelio Pureza, Percival Adiong, and Edgar Dula Torre; as well as Reynaldo Velasco, Dominador Domingo, Jewel Canson, Rufino Ibay Jr., and Edgar Aglipay, among other officials.

Pelaez said there were also some personnel from the PNP-Commission on Audit and some officers of the LandBank of the Philippines that Lacson wished to be included.

"There’s too many, you know, and I’ll just tell it next time. He wanted me to implicate these (officials) in anomalies in the PNP so that he could have the PNP officers still in active service replaced with his own people. He wanted them removed so that he could (have) complete control of the PNP," Pelaez told reporters.

She added, "Now, Mr. Lacson is running for president. I wonder if the people know his true character. Let his record speak, and let my actions, however small they may be, be a part of the record."

Pelaez said Lacson asked her to manufacture evidence of malfeasance against these officials — "anything from scams to smuggling" — before he would allow her to collect the money from PNP.

Pelaez said she remains unpaid after a Senate conducted an inquiry into the handcuffs deal, which she claimed was found to be legal and in order.

"I have earned the money and am entitled to every cent of it. I have asked for nothing more and believe me, I will settle for nothing less," she said.

Settlement Offer

Pelaez also accused Lacson’s camp of trying to strike an out-of-court settlement with her for much more than the $3 million award she received from Judge Julie Conger of the Superior Court of Oakland arising from the case she filed against Lacson.

The offer was made by some of the senator’s intermediaries — including common friends and relatives — for her to drop the case, she said.

As she decided to pursue the court case, Pelaez said she received several threats from the Philippines in February this year, which she reported to the Fremont police department in Alameda County, California.

In her complaint, Pelaez claimed the messages were from a local cellular phone number whose user only identified himself as Brando. She said the messages offered her $6 million to drop the case and told her to go to Hong Kong to meet Lacson’s intermediary and receive the money.

"The message also said that if she does not do this, she would die a horrible death. Pelaez said that Lacson is slated to become the Philippines’ next president, and does not want to have all this out in the open. She said that she feels he is responsible for the threat," the police report read.

Pelaez said she was not really bothered by the threats because she feels safe in the US, where she is already a citizen.

She also brushed aside insinuations that she is being used by the Arroyo administration against Lacson.

"Nobody can use me… I’m not for sale, no money can pay who I am. I have my own money, my properties in the US. I can afford to fight and I have gone far enough, I can no longer stop, especially with the court judgment in my favor," Pelaez said.

‘Waste Of Money, Time’

Meanwhile, Jesus Santos, the First Gentleman’s lawyer, said Lacson’s failure to support his charges with any piece of solid evidence has so far wasted taxpayers’ money and senators’ precious time.

"Senator Lacson should apologize to his colleagues at the Senate, and to the Filipino people. He should come back from wherever he is and face the music like a man, admit he was reckless in delivering those privilege speeches," Santos said.

When informed that the senator was overseas gathering evidence against his client, Santos said that if Lacson was still gathering evidence after having delivered two speeches, then "surely he had no evidence to start with, no case, no crime."

He noted that even Lacson’s colleagues in the opposition are getting impatient and exasperated. Opposition Sen. Aquilino Pimentel earlier expressed disgust that Lacson left the country shortly after his exposé, and was absent in the last Senate hearing.

Six of seven banks mentioned in Lacson’s privilege speeches have denied that the accounts exist. The certifications were issued by PhilAm Savings Bank, UnionBank, Banco de Oro, Banco Filipino, Allied Bank and BPI Family Bank.

Lacson even went to the extent of challenging the First Gentleman’s younger brother Ignacio to issue a special power of attorney to donate any existing funds to Senate employees. Ignacio answered the challenge by issuing the SPA, and countered that Lacson should be the one to donate the funds to the Senate employees if the accounts were found to be non-existent.

Even a reputable foreign bank, the International Commercial Bank of China, announced through newspaper ads that the Ricardo Medrano account has never existed in their Hong Kong branch, contrary to Lacson’s charge that the account was used to transmit large sums of money to the Jose Pidal accounts allegedly opened by the First Gentleman.

Recycled Issue

Lacson’s camp, on the other hand, said Mr. Arroyo is using a "disgruntled" Filipino-American handcuff supplier to muddle the controversy surrounding the First Gentleman.

Lacson’s political adviser and spokesman Lito Banayo made the accusation in reaction to claims made by Pelaez. He said Pelaez "is recycling the handcuff issue obviously at the behest of Mr. Arroyo in order to discredit the senator."

"What the public should understand is that Ms. Pelaez is a disgruntled businesswoman who had not succeeded in persuading Senator Lacson to approve payment of a highly questionable contract ordered by his predecessor as PNP chief," he said.

Banayo said Lacson refused to pay because Pelaez wanted the government to shoulder customs duties and taxes, which she was supposed to shoulder under the contract she signed with the PNP.

He added that it was the Arroyo camp that arranged Pelaez’s news conference and provided security for her.

Banayo described the photographs and documents Pelaez presented to the media as "fabricated and recycled."

He said his client’s house, built on a 416-square meter lot in BF Parañaque, is the same house where Lacson and his family have been residing since 1992. Lacson spent P750,000 to build the house and its market value has appreciated to at least P6 million.

Banayo said Pelaez’s allegation that Lacson owns a house along El Grande Street in Ayala Alabang is an outright lie.

"They are trying hard to nail down Senator Lacson on a perjury case and possible misdeclaration of assets but I’m sure at the end of the day, they will come out with nothing," he stressed.

Banayo said if Pelaez has a legitimate claim against his client, she should look for whatever assets the senator owns in the US.

"Not here, where US court decisions are not applicable and where she is being used as a pawn by Mr. Arroyo," he said.

In a related development, the handwriting expert tapped by Lacson to testify on the controversial signature of Jose Pidal might face charges for "practicing without a license" from the Professional Regulation Commission.

Segundo Tabayoyong, a former handwriting expert of the National Bureau of Investigation, is not licensed to analyze questioned documents, according to Eliodoro Constantino, chief of the NBI’s Questioned Documents Division.

Constantino said that what Tabayoyong did was in violation of Republic Act (RA) 6506, the law that created the board of criminology. He faces one to two years’ imprisonment and a penalty of P1,000 to P10,000, depending on the discretion of the judge.

Sources said Tabayoyong left the NBI in the early 1980s, before RA 6506 was passed in 1988.

"He must have overlooked the fact that he was not supposed to come out and make analysis without a license," an NBI official said on condition of anonymity.

Reports have it that Santos, Mr. Arroyo’s lawyer, claimed Tabayoyong was cited by a court for incompetence in 1985 and 1986. — With Jess Diaz, Cecille Suerte Felipe