PCGG defends junkets

A Presidential Commission on Good Government official defended the foreign travels by the PCGG and the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), saying these trips were necessary to follow up and win favorable judgments on important recovery cases being pursued by the government.

Lawyer Ricardo Abcede, PCGG commissioner, stressed that the foreign trips were not junkets as they involved crucial discussions with retained foreign lawyers representing the Philippine government in different recovery cases.

Abcede clarified that the foreign litigation fund currently stands at $28 million and not $34 million, as earlier reported.

He argued that the travel expenses incurred by the PCGG and the OSG are charged to this fund and they have only been spending the interest earnings of the principal amount.

“That $28 million is still intact. What we are using for foreign expenses is only coming from the interest,” Abcede said.

He explained that the initial $34-million foreign litigation fund set up by the late PCGG chair Haydee Yorac in 2003 had been reduced by $6 million in 2004 after paying for the services of Swiss lawyer Sergio Salvioni.

Salvioni was instrumental in the forfeiture of the more than $600-million Marcos Swiss bank deposits in favor of the Philippine government.

Abcede said that the recent foreign trips were also necessary since many of the recovery cases were now on trial.

“The comparison of foreign travels under former PCGG chair Haydee Yorac and the present commission is not correct,” Abcede said. “It is reported that during her time there were very few foreign travels by the Commission with faxes, e-mails and phone calls to foreign lawyers being sufficient.”

“But it must be explained that during her time, there were no actual trials yet on the Singapore case. And no appeal had as yet been made in the Arelma case,” the PCGG official stressed.

Abcede, Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera and Assistant Solicitor General Marissa Galandines recently went on a 10-day trip to Singapore in connection with the government’s bid to recover some $27 million from the Singaporean branch of Swiss bank West LB.

The trip has been questioned as it came after the filing of a graft case against PCGG officials before the Office of the Ombudsman for exorbitant foreign travels.

The travels attributed to PCGG and OSG officials in the first six months of the year alone cost almost $1 million.

Abcede said the Singapore trip was crucial since they were preparing for the first hearing of the case by the Singapore Court of Appeal scheduled this coming February.