PCGG accuses judge of favoring Imelda

The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) wants the Supreme Court to investigate a Manila regional trial court judge for showing partiality in the dollar-salting case filed against former first lady Imelda Marcos.

PCGG chairwoman Haydee Yorac is set to file today a formal complaint against Manila RTC Branch 26 Judge Oscar Barrientos, accusing him of "gross misconduct and manifest bias" in trying the 32 counts of dollar salting against Marcos.

Yorac, in her complaint letter to the Supreme Court, said Barrientos’ manifest bias in favor of Marcos glaringly showed in two "slips" he committed when he gave her a permit to travel for one month to the United States and Europe from Oct. 1 to Nov. 1.

She asked the Supreme Court, through the Office of the Court Administrator, to conduct an investigation into Barrientos’ conduct "and when warranted by the Court’s findings, punish said judge with removal from office — without prejudice to any criminal liability he may have incurred."

Marcos arrived last Nov. 12 after more than a month abroad. She had gone to the United States, Italy, Portugal, France and Britain for "medical treatment" and pilgrimages to religious shrines.

Prior to her trip abroad, she had to secure travel permits from the Sandiganbayan’s fourth and fifth divisions, Manila RTC Branch 26 and Quezon City RTC Branch 226 where she has pending criminal and civil cases.

In Barrientos’ case, Marcos’ lawyers had filed for an "urgent motion for leave to travel abroad" specifically to the US, France, Portugal and Italy from Oct. 1 to Nov. 1 only on the day of her departure on Sept. 26.

Despite the lawyers’ belated filing, Barrientos apparently cast a blind eye to the disrespect shown to his court by still issuing the requested travel permit on Oct. 2, when Marcos was already out of the country.

Yorac also said that Barrientos gave Marcos a permit to travel to the US and London, despite the latter destination not being mentioned in the motion filed by Marcos’ lawyers.

"He gave the accused authority to travel to ‘United States and London’ when all that the accused sought in her motion was authority to travel to ‘the United States, France, Portugal and Italy.’ That this was not an innocent mistake but a slip that betrayed the connivance between the judge and the accused is made clear by the subsequent pleading filed by Imelda Marcos," she said.

This pleading, according to Yorac, was a "motion to amend 2 October 2003 Order and Extend Travel Abroad" wherein Marcos’ lawyers asked Barrientos to extend the travel permit given her to Nov. 12, citing an additional trip to London as a justification for the extension.

Marcos earlier accused the PCGG yesterday of harassment by seeking her arrest upon her return to the country for extending the period of her travel abroad.

Last Nov. 13, she appeared before the Sandiganbayan’s fourth and fifth divisions, where she signed clearances and presented her passport, accompanied by personal physician Dr. Lorenzo Jocson and her lawyer Robert Sison.

Presiding Judge Gregory Ong of the anti-graft court’s fourth division had allowed her to travel to the United States for 30 days, from Sept. 26 to Oct. 26, but she flew back to the Philippines from London on Nov. 12, well past the deadline.

Sison earlier filed a motion to amend the resolution and extend her travel to Nov. 12 and to include London, England as part of her approved itinerary. Ong, however, denied the motion for lack of merit.

Marcos’ delay in returning to the country alarmed government officials who claimed she may have tried to gain access to stolen wealth believed stashed abroad.

The PCGG, an agency tasked to recover all alleged ill-gotten wealth by the Marcos family, had asked the court to immediately jail her as soon as she arrived.

Marcos, whose powers of persuasion are as legendary as her enormous shoe collection, said the last leg of her trip in Britain had been necessary because eye experts treating her are based there.

But some newspapers reported she had been spotted in Italy quaffing wine in restaurants and shopping for luxury goods.

Marcos said she chose to proceed to London to have her eyes and knees examined by specialists since she could not go back to the US because her travel permit had expired.

The specialists she consulted advised her to return in mid-January for further treatment.

Marcos faces 11 graft charges at the Sandiganbayan in connection with the foundations and companies she set up while she was in public office and for allegedly enriching herself while her husband President Ferdinand Marcos was in office.

Experts had earlier placed the total Marcos stolen wealth at $10 billion. So far, government has traced some $680 million in Swiss bank funds, which are now being prepared for transfer to the Philippines following a landmark court ruling in July proclaiming it as government property.