Gordon wants another witness in fertilizer fund scam probe

Sen. Richard Gordon wants another supposed witness in the fertilizer fund scam to surface as she holds vital information on where a part of the P728 million went.

Gordon said Malyne Araos would be of much significance to the Senate Blue Ribbon committee probe as she was the sole signatory of the bank account where the payment of P105 million for fertilizer products bought from Feshan Philippines Inc. was deposited.

“There is much gravity to the information that Ms. Araos holds. She is the sole signatory of a bank account where only about half of the amount went to the supposed recipient,” Gordon, chairman of the committee, said.

During the Dec. 22 committee hearing, Feshan Philippines president Julie Gregorio revealed that while the company declared a P105-million sale of fertilizer to the government, the amount actually paid to them was only P50 million.

Gregorio said the payment was deposited to an account opened at the Land Bank Philippines branch in Elliptical Circle in Quezon City under the name of Araos, who was a former employee of alleged runner Marites Aytona.

Gordon said the committee was trying to establish communication with Araos to convince her to come out and testify at the panel’s hearing scheduled on Jan. 20.

“We already know that the P50 million went to Feshan as attested to by Ms. Gregorio. What we want to know now is where the other P55 million went or who benefited from it,” he added.

Gordon said the committee now has leads on where P105 million of the P728 million fund went. The next step, he said, would be to find out in whose hands the remaining P623-million landed.

However, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano is questioning why the current Senate investigation into the fertilizer fund scam appears to be stopping at former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn “Jocjoc” Bolante instead of providing leads to the culprits in higher office.

Cayetano, former Senate Blue Ribbon committee chairman, said he could not understand why Gordon was too focused on Bolante and his links to other smaller witnesses or characters involved in the scam.

“It is alright to dwell on their testimonies if they will be used to pin down the mastermind, the higher ups and not to close or end the investigation (with only Bolante’s supposed culpability being exposed),” Cayetano said.

Bolante was remiss

Gordon said Bolante had been negligent in carrying out his duty as a government official when he did not take concrete action to stop the illegal operation in the DA, which had been bared to him in a meeting with the operators.

“Here was a group of financiers with their lawyer complaining to Mr. Bolante that they were ripped off, and what did he do? He wrote a confidential report to (former DA) Secretary Luis Lorenzo because of the complaint’s sensitive nature,” he said.

“Mr. Bolante omitted to do the right thing in not instigating an investigation on the complaint. He had been very negligent as a DA official, a high-ranking one, at that. He had a very cavalier attitude to this corruption that was bared to him,” he added.

According to Agriculture Undersecretary Belinda Gonzales, who was then Bolante’s assistant secretary, the illegal operation was made known to Bolante when he met with Jaime Paule, alleged financier in the fertilizer fund scam, and at least nine others.

In one of the hearings conducted by the Senate panel on the fertilizer fund scam, Gonzales also disclosed that Paule and the others complained that a group purportedly close to Lorenzo fleeced them of their investment.

Gordon stressed that if Bolante had not been remiss in carrying out his duty, the well-entrenched syndicate in the DA would have been exposed and its operation stopped.

“If Bolante had this complaint investigated, then the operation of the syndicate in the department would be revealed and stopped. Then Paule would not have been able to repeat his illegal act through the fertilizer fund scam,” he said.

The investigation into the issue will resume on Jan. 19 with Paule as resource person. He promised to attend the hearing after he was ordered arrested and was forced to show up at the Senate before the break in December.