Palace exec: P.5 M from me

MANILA, Philippines – Deputy Executive Secretary Manuel Gaite accused yesterday Senate witness Rodolfo Lozada Jr. of duping him into giving him P500,000 and making it appear that the latter was being bribed into not testifying on the scrapped $329-million national broadband network (NBN) project.

But senators downplayed his story and challenged him instead to testify at the Senate.

Gaite, however, maintained that no government funds were given to Lozada and that he expected the loan to be paid back.

“It’s unfortunate that all my efforts at helping Jun Lozada have been twisted by him or made to appear as part of a scheme to prevent him from testifying in the Senate hearing on the NBN/ZTE project,” Gaite declared.

“With the way Jun Lozada has twisted my response to his personal appeal, deceived me about his dire consequences, publicly and repeatedly dragged my name into a controversy I have no personal knowledge about, I regret that my act of compassion was taken advantage of, and was used to suit his story,” Gaite said in a statement.

He stressed he did not seek out Lozada but it was the latter who sought his legal assistance through Commission on Higher Education Chairman Romulo Neri.

Gaite said the decision to go on the foreign trip was Lozada’s, not his, and it was Lozada who arranged his own travel documents.

He said Lozada texted him that it was so cold where he was – and he assumed that the witness was in London – and that he had no winter clothing and was running out of funds.

Gaite said Lozada also texted: “I cannot go on like this,” which he thought referred to the death threats the latter was receiving before he left for abroad.

“I believed him, I pitied him. That text came at about 2 a.m. of February 3. When my wife saw the text and asked me about it, she also felt pity for him and asked if there is any way I could help him,” Gaite said.

He said he handed the money to Lozada’s brother, Owe, and thought that the witness would account for it after coming back from London.

Gaite said this was the reason why he asked Lozada’s brother to sign an acknowledgment receipt.

He stressed that Lozada has been omitting in his public statements that there was a receipt.

“I was surprised when I learned that he was coming home already the day after I gave the money. Did he really need the money or was he just baiting me? It is not true, as claimed by Lozada, that the money I gave him through his brother was meant to prevent him from appearing in the Senate hearing or make him tell a lie if he appears in the hearing,” Gaite said.

However, Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada, Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan and Sen. Panfilo Lacson laughed off his version of the story.

Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, said Gaite should come to the Senate and speak under oath.

“If it’s really a loan then we must pay it. What I’m saying is we want the answer under oath and decide what to do with the money afterwards.”

Mrs. Lozada charged

Meanwhile, a police official on Monday afternoon filed perjury charges against the wife of Lozada for allegedly demanding that they produce her husband even after the couple were reunited on the evening of Feb. 5.

Police Senior Superintendent Paul Mascariñas, deputy director of the Police Security and Protection Office-Philippine National Police (PSPO-PNP), filed the criminal case against Violeta Cruz-Lozada before the Manila City Prosecutor’s Office at around 3 p.m. last Monday, Feb. 18.

In the five-page complaint, Mascariñas denied the allegations made by Mrs. Lozada in the petition for the immediate issuance of the writ of habeas corpus that she filed before the Supreme Court (SC).

“She alleged that her husband’s liberty was restrained either at the Villamor Air Base, Malacañang Palace, Manila International Airport (MIA), Presidential Security Group, PNP headquarters in Camp Crame or in other places where the respondents would reportedly have complete control and supervision.

“Up until the time she filed the case at 1:11 p.m. of Feb. 6, she reportedly did not know her husband’s whereabouts. She believes that Lozada was detained against his will without any legal basis by the respondents or by other people who have control and supervision over him,” part of the complaint read.

Named respondents in the habeas corpus case were Angel Atutubo, assistant general manager for security and emergency services at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA); PNP Director General Avelino Razon Jr.; Lieutenant General Pedrito Cadungog; General Octavio Luna; Brig. Gen. Romeo Prestoza and Senior Police Officer 1 Roger Valeroso.

Attorney Virgilio Pablico, chief of the legal division of the PNP-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), wrote a two-page letter to Manila City Prosecutor Jhosep Lopez supporting the complaint filed by Mascariñas.

In the letter he explained that Lozada reportedly admitted during the Feb. 8 Senate hearing that he was brought to the De La Salle Greenhills on Feb. 5 and was reunited with his family.

“It is more than crystal clear that Mr. Lozada was in La Salle Greenhills from the evening of Feb. 5 until late morning of Feb. 6 and his wife is cognizant of this fact. None of the foregoing facts appear in the petition. They have been willfully and deliberately concealed by Mrs. Lozada, despite the fact that they were clearly material and relevant to the issue of habeas corpus,” Pablico added. – Aurea Calica, Evelyn Macairan