Removal from office of PCGG officials sought

MANILA, Philippines - A former lawmaker urged President Arroyo yesterday to remove Chairman Camilo Sabio and Commissioner Ricardo Abcede from the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG).

“They should be out. They are beyond redemption,” former Rep. Loretta Ann Rosales of the party-list group Akbayan told a Quezon City news forum.

She said both Sabio and Abcede “are frequently out of the country with friends and family, using PCGG funds.”

She said the PCGG chairman has just returned from a three-week vacation in Paris, France and Vienna, Austria with his wife.

She said PCGG officials draw funds from the Marcoses’ Swiss deposits that are now held in escrow in the Philippine National Bank.

“Chairman Sabio is also facing a graft and corruption case in the Office of the Ombudsman for depositing P10 million in Marcos wealth-related funds in his personal bank account. Fortunately for him, the Ombudsman is sitting on his case,” Rosales added.

“It’s a clear case of graft. How can funds in the millions intended for the national treasury find their way to a personal account?” she asked.

In the case of Abcede, Rosales said the commissioner wants to enter into a deal with former first lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos regarding the Marcos family’s wealth, including P15 billion worth of jewelry.

“He wants to waltz with Imelda. He’s addicted to gambling. He’s absurd. He has no business being in PCGG,” she said.

She said she could not understand why Mrs. Arroyo is allowing the two officials to stay in office despite their alleged acts of impropriety.

Rosales also criticized former Justice secretary Raul Gonzalez for ordering Mrs Marcos’s jewelry to be returned to her if there was no legal impediment.

“Like Abcede, Raul Gonzalez wants to waltz with Imelda. It’s good that his successor stopped the return of Imelda’s jewels,” she said.

She said Gonzalez should have known that the former first lady’s expensive jewelry were sequestered by or surrendered to the government.

“The law says that the Marcos wealth should be recovered for the agrarian reform program,” she said.

She added that part of such wealth should be used to compensate victims of human rights abuses during martial law.