Bolante arrested in Makati, detained at Senate

The Senate sergeant-at-arms arrested anew a “defiant” former Agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc-joc” Bolante last night after senators ordered his arrest and detention for giving contradicting testimony during the investigation into his alleged involvement in the P728 million fertilizer fund scam.

Bolante was cited in contempt by the members of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee for his evasiveness, thus the order for his arrest and detention.

Bolante will be detained at the Senate building starting last night until the resumption of the hearings on Monday, December 8.

Bolante was served the warrant of arrest in Makati City last night but instead of going straight to the Senate, Bolante asked the arresting team to allow him to go to his home in Ayala, Alabang in Muntinlupa first to see his wife who he said is suffering from a mild stroke.

While he surrendered to the Senate sergeant-at-arms, Bolante and his lawyers said they would question the arrest order before the proper forum.

“I am now (under) double arrest,” Bolante said in a statement read by his lawyer, Alexis Abastillas.

Bolante said he was arrested upon his deportation last Oct. 28 by virtue of an order issued during the 13th Congress and was placed under protective custody by the Senate now in the 14th Congress.

Bolante denied being evasive and said “the answers considered evasive should be evaluated as indeed being false and evasive.”

“With the order of arrest, I have been condemned and convicted by the Blue Ribbon committee until they hear what they want to hear,” Bolante said.

“For the record, what I have answered at the hearing is the truth and no amount of compulsion and coercion can make me change my answers as they want it to be,” he stressed.

Bolante said the statements of other officials that were contrary to what he said should not automatically make him evasive and an untruthful witness.

The arrest order against Bolante was signed by 13 senators, including Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile.

Sen. Richard Gordon, chairman of the Blue Ribbon committee, said Bolante’s contradicting statements and continuous evasiveness during the panel’s hearings last Nov.13, 25 and 28, on the fertilizer fund program were enough bases to have him held for contempt.

“Sen. (Rodolfo) Biazon, for example, said there was a continuous stream of lies from the very time he was investigated. He was summoned, he was subpoenaed and he kept changing his story,” he added.

Gordon said Bolante went to the United States but his visa was cancelled.  He then sought political asylum but this was denied and he was deported.

“If he really wanted to come back…yet he asked for asylum. That’s a clear indication that there is every attempt to thwart this investigation,” Gordon said.

But Bolante maintained he answered under oath without reservations.

During the hearings, Bolante maintained that his only role in the program was to “download” the funds, and that it was a regular program of the Department of Agriculture (DA).

However, DA regional field unit (RFU) directors contradicted Bolante’s statements, saying that the farm inputs-farm implements program was never a regular project of the department.

The regional directors also said that letters of instruction and purchase orders regarding the program were signed by Bolante, thus opposing his statement that he was not part of the implementation of the project.

Meanwhile, the Senate Blue Ribbon committee will expand its investigation into the fertilizer fund scam to include the murder of journalist Marlene Garcia Esperat who exposed an alleged illegal procurement of P232 million worth of fertilizers.

Gordon said while the Esperat murder case was mentioned in previous investigations at the Senate, “the predicate was not properly laid down about the complete circumstances that led to her assassination.”

Esperat, who also worked as agriculture action officer of the resident Ombudsman, was believed killed because she exposed the anomaly.

“So far, the case has made some progress in courts but the masterminds have never been revealed,” Gordon said.

“The anomaly allegedly involves as much as P460 million. It was done by certain personalities and the person who wanted to expose it was killed. This is what badly needs to be investigated,” he added.

Gordon said he was currently gathering complete evidence that would reveal and pinpoint who actually ordered Esperat’s killing. – With Rhodina Villanueva