Iggy dares Peter: Make my day

Go ahead, make my day.

This, in sum, was the reaction of presidential brother-in-law and Negros Occidental Rep. Jose Ignacio “Iggy” Arroyo to the appointment of Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano as chairman of the Blue Ribbon Committee.

Cayetano earlier said he was determined to reopen the “Jose Pidal” case, which involved Congressman Arroyo and his brother First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo.

For at least one year prior to his election to the Senate, Cayetano, as House deputy minority leader and Taguig-Pateros congressman, had been a vocal critic of President Arroyo and her husband.

Congressman Arroyo said he has no problem with Cayetano’s chairmanship of the powerful Blue Ribbon Committee and the possible reopening of the Jose Pidal probe.

But he warned Cayetano that the Pidal inquiry might end up as the former Taguig-Pateros congressman’s “malicious” accusation that the Arroyos kept hundreds of millions of dollars in a German bank.

The Blue Ribbon Committee’s Jose Pidal investigation was prompted by the three-part “Jose Pidal-Incredible Hulk” expose of opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson in September 2003.

In his expose, Lacson accused the First Gentleman of hiding P260 million in illegal funds using the false name “Jose Pidal” with his personal secretary, Vicky Toh, and her brother Thomas as dummies.

The opposition senator produced copies of bank statements given to him by Eugenio “Udong” Mahusay, a disgruntled employee of the President’s husband, to support his accusation, which the First Gentleman and the Tohs denied.

Eight days after Lacson’s expose, Iggy Arroyo came out and claimed he was Jose Pidal and that he owned the bank accounts Lacson attributed to his brother.

But when summoned by the Blue Ribbon Committee, then chaired by Sen. Joker Arroyo, the First Gentleman’s brother refused to talk about the accounts and their details, invoking his right to privacy at least 25 times.

Lacson and some committee members, including then Sen. Serge Osmeña, did not believe Iggy’s claim that he owned the Pidal accounts. They requested him to sign as Jose Pidal, but he declined.

He also refused to discuss the two residential-commercial buildings in downtown San Francisco, California allegedly purchased for him in 1992 by then Sen. Gloria Arroyo and her husband.

Senator Arroyo respected Iggy’s right to privacy and did not force him to talk.

A few months later, in the May 2004 elections, the First Gentleman’s brother ran for congress and beat then incumbent Rep. Jose Apolinario Lozada.

Asked if he would appear before the Blue Ribbon Committee if the Jose Pidal inquiry were reopened, Congressman Arroyo said he could not answer a hypothetical question.

Unlike a private citizen or a bureaucrat in the executive branch, Arroyo cannot be compelled to appear in a Senate investigation because the two chambers of Congress observe what is known as inter-chamber courtesy. In the same manner, the House cannot summon a senator.

The case of the German account was brought up by Cayetano in August last year in the course of a House hearing on an impeachment case against President Arroyo.

To disprove the accusation, the First Gentleman, accompanied by his spokesman and Mrs. Arroyo’s election lawyer Romulo Macalintal, flew to Munich, Germany to obtain certifications from HypoVereinsbank that none of the Arroyos had an account there in the last 10 years.

The Arroyos later filed a complaint against their accuser with the House ethics committee, which eventually voted to recommend a 45-day suspension on Cayetano. Before it could act on the recommendation, the House declared a four-month election break.