GMA: Graft drive will spare no one

Malacañang reaffirmed yesterday President Arroyo’s policy to throw the book at corrupt government officials and employees, no matter how highly placed they are in her administration.

Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye reiterated the President’s directives following her dismissal of erstwhile undersecretary Nolan Sison of the Office of Media and Ecclesiastical Affairs after he was reportedly caught on surveillance camera trying to extort P1 million from Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) officials.

DOTC Secretary Leandro Mendoza named Sison as the man who demanded the money in exchange for withdrawing a smear campaign to block his confirmation by the Commission on Appointments (CA).

Mendoza said he is filing criminal charges against Sison along with several journalists and public relations practitioners with the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Speaking over the government-run Radyo ng Bayan yesterday, Bunye said he was not privy to the details of the case. He reiterated Mrs. Arroyo’s campaign to rid her administration of graft and corruption.

Sison’s former boss, Secretary Conrado Limcaoco, now head of the Cabinet Office for Provincial Events (COPE), said he was not aware that his former deputy was involved in extortion activities.

Reached by The STAR yesterday, Limcaoco said he had advised Sison to answer the charges against him through the media and other fora.

Limcaoco pointed out that his former deputy resigned "a few weeks ago," before his former office was virtually abolished after the President created COPE and he was appointed to head the new office last month.

He said Mrs. Arroyo did not discuss Sison’s case with him after Mendoza’s charges were reported in the media.

In his talks with the President, Limcaoco said she instructed him to reset on Saturday a "pulong bayan" or town hall meeting she was forced to cancel last Wednesday after flash floods struck Manila.

Mrs. Arroyo said she plans to tackle the issues of energy independence and power-saving measures at the Pandacan Linear Park depot in Manila at 11 a.m. on Saturday after an overnight visit to her hometown in Lubao, Pampanga.

Limcaoco expressed disbelief that Sison, whom he described as a member of a religious group, would be involved in high-level extortion.

He recalled Sison telling him a couple of weeks earlier of a planned "exposé" against the DOTC.

"I told him (Sison) to just drop it. Don’t pay attention to it," he quoted himself telling his former deputy.

Last Tuesday, Mendoza said Sison claimed to represent Philippine Monitoring Group (PMG), a supposed anti-graft watchdog.

He also implicated Richard Rivera, a former newscaster of state-run RPN-9 television who reportedly resigned before the May 10 elections to manage the media group of the opposition Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino (KNP).

In a statement, the DOTC said Sison and his group have been trying to contact its officials since June, threatening to publish alleged anomalies in the DOTC to coincide with Mrs. Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address on July 26.

"We told them to go ahead, after all we have nothing to hide," one DOTC official said. The PMG failed to make good its threat until Sison managed to arrange a meeting last Aug. 2.

Sison reportedly gave DOTC officials one week to produce the money under threat of launching the demolition job against Mendoza and other DOTC officials.

"This time, they made good their threat because they published baseless and unfounded accusation against us in several tabloids last Aug. 20," one official said.

An entrapment operation was set last Aug. 23 where a hidden video camera caught Sison entering the premises of the DOTC.

Sison was reportedly accompanied by former undersecretary Tim Orbos but this was not shown on video. Orbos was the predecessor of Sison at the Office of Media and Ecclesiastical Affairs and is the younger brother of former Pangasinan governor and television host Oscar Orbos.

Sison reportedly told DOTC that PMG is a spin-off of the KNP media group which disbanded after opposition standard-bearer Fernando Poe Jr. lost the presidential elections last May.

Left on their own, the group formed the PMG with the mission to harass government officials under the guise of pursuing a crusade against corruption, the DOTC said.

Sison, a former dzRH reporter, reportedly admitted their group has a network of journalists in their employ.

Sison vehemently denied the charges, claiming he was simply trying to help the government" in its campaign against graft and corruption.

He claimed DOTC Assistant Secretary Robert Castañares — chairman of the department’s public bidding and awards committee (PBAC) — called him two weeks ago to sound him off about a supposed exposé.

Sison claimed Castañares apparently got his information from Tim Orbos, a common friend, and that documents coming from the opposition would directly link Malacañang to shady deals of the PBAC. — Marichu Villanueva