Newsbreak: Palace tried to settle with ‘Virgie’

Ranking government officials – including a presidential relative, advisers, and military and police officers – knew as early as January 2005 of the plans of First Gentleman Jose Miguel "Mike" Arroyo’s alleged former lover to expose their relationship.

These public officials tried to shield President Arroyo from the embarrassment as well as contain the brewing scandal by negotiating with the girl, a certain Maria Celia Virginia Suarez (known as Maricel and Virgie), Newsbreak learned as early as last year from sources in and out of government.

Suarez had planned to file a disbarment petition against Mr. Arroyo, a lawyer. The petition was never filed, Newsbreak learned, because Suarez and her lawyer eventually backed out in early 2005.

A certification issued March 12 by the Director for Bar Discipline of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines says that "according to records of this office, Atty. Jose Miguel T. Arroyo of LTA Building, Perea St., Makati City has no pending administrative or disbarment case field against him."However, the petition as well as alleged photos of Mr. Arroyo and Suarez appear in a blog that was uploaded last March 8. Text messages promoting the site circulated today, March 12, in the middle of the campaign period for the senatorial polls in May. A lawyer we consulted said that for a disbarment petition, Suarez’s alleged draft petition had too many "extraneous details." The lawyer said that "only the ultimate facts should be in the petition."Thus, he said, this raises questions about the intent of the draft itself – if it’s for filing or mere propaganda.Juris Soliman, spokesperson for Mr. Arroyo, said the alleged draft petition is "fabricated…the intention is to malign the First Gentleman just like what [Taguig congressman and senatorial bet] Alan Peter Cayetano did with his expose on the supposed German bank accounts of the First Gentleman."The photos are "obviously" fabricated, too, Soliman told NEWSBREAK.She acknowledged though that Suarez was a former employee of the First Gentleman."Mr. Arroyo is friendly to everyone. That’s the way he is," Soliman added. But the old photos were made up to appear that they had a special relationship, she said. "It’s not true; she was just an employee."The alleged draft petition says that Suarez and Mr. Arroyo met in the late 1970s.According to a timeline prepared in early 2005 by a private individual who claimed to have helped set up Suarez’s meetings with the officials, a presidential relative, through a lawyer, offered Suarez $100,000 (P5.5 million at the prevailing exchange rates then) for her silence. The woman reportedly refused the amount being offered; she had wanted P100 million.We informed this private individual today about the blog and asked for a statement. This private individual sent a text: "It has been a while. I know nothing about it already. Sorry, I don’t want to get involved."Suarez, according to at least three sources who were involved in the negotiations, had planned to go public after Mr. Arroyo allegedly failed to deliver the financial support supposedly promised her in exchange for going abroad and not talking to members of the political opposition at the height of the controversy in 2003. It was at this time when the President’s husband was accused of maintaining multimillion-peso bank accounts under the false name Jose Pidal. The expose was made by Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who is running for re-election in May.The negotiations that lasted nearly a month bogged down; as early as January 2005 Suarez had told negotiators that she was planning to file a disbarment case against Mr. Arroyo, according to these sources.By mid-February 2005, Suarez had stopped communicating with the private persons and government officials she had previously contacted.The camp of the First Gentleman had insisted to some of those involved in the negotiations that Suarez and her conduits were out to extort from her. He denied to the negotiating parties all of Suarez’s claims as well.It was at the height of the "Hello, Garci" scandal in 2005 when NEWSBREAK got leads about Suarez.At the time, Cabinet officials were talking in whispers about how the photographs of Mr. Arroyo with Suarez and a child believed to be theirs had been discreetly passed around among some Cabinet members, according to a former Cabinet official.We pursued the leads, but lack of details brought our research only so far.We gathered then, however, that Suarez was a former member of the Pasay Makati Realtors Board and the last that her colleagues heard about her was that she sold her house in Acropolis Subdivision in Quezon City because of her plans to live in the US.These details would support the claims she would eventually make in an alleged affidavit against Mr. Arroyo in 2005, which is in our possession. In the last quarter of 2006, NEWSBREAK got hold of a petition supposedly executed, but not signed, by Suarez for the disbarment of Mr. Arroyo. We got a copy of the draft from a former presidential adviser.In the 31-page document, she was to ask the Supreme Court to drop Mr. Arroyo from the roll of lawyers on three grounds: "acts of immorality," "acts constitutive of graft and corruption," and "acts detrimental to the Office of the President."We decided against publishing the petition until it was signed by Suarez and filed before the tribunal. The document also contained erasures so as not to reveal names, addresses, and other details of incidents cited. The annexes were also missing.As we pursued the story behind the draft petition, we obtained a shorter version of the document, this time from another former presidential adviser. The supposed petition yielded the supporting documents that made up the annexes.The shorter version was to ask for Mr. Arroyo’s disbarment only on the grounds of "immorality" for allegedly having an extramarital affair and for reportedly deceiving Suarez about his real civil status. The document, 23 pages in all, was the exact copy of the "immorality" part of the longer petition.

NEWSBREAK also obtained a transcript of the interview made with Suarez to become the basis of the petition for disbarment. It was written in English and Filipino.

The transcript contains Suarez’s supposed knowledge of and involvement in Mr. Arroyo’s realty businesses and details about their supposed trips together.No lawyer’s name appeared on both versions of the petition.However, the shorter version we got was also accompanied by a "Verification and Certification of Non-Forum Shopping" signed by Suarez on Jan. 31, 2005. The signature would be similar to the hand-written authorization letter she signed the following day for a private individual —the same private individual we mentioned earlier —to negotiate on her behalf.It’s the longer version of the petition that was made public in the blog.

(What’s the story behind the Mike Arroyo-Celia Suarez controversy? Only in NEWSBREAK. Check it out in www.newsbreak.com.ph)