Consolidation of cases against former Pagcor executives mulled

MANILA, Philippines - The new management of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) is still studying whether to consolidate all cases against former officials of the agency or file separate charges for each alleged corruption case involving them, officials said.

Pagcor spokesman Jay Santiago said that they are almost done with the investigations on the alleged anomalous transactions entered into by the previous management.

“We’re almost finished on the issue of the hamburgers, we’re almost finished with investigation regarding the rice, we’re almost finished on the issues with the BIDA foundation... ultimately our investigators will provide us with a closing report on these investigations and if we find sufficient cause to file charges, then we’ll file them,” he said.

Santiago added that the possible graft charges would not only be filed against former Pagcor chairman Efraim Genuino but all involved personalities and officials.

“We’re studying if we are going to file all these cases, each and every one, or do we have to wait until such time that we have a very, very strong case,” he said.

Santiago said they are almost done with the investigations into the P21-million worth of McDonalds’ hamburgers and chicken donated to the National Capital Region Police Office as well as the nearly P29-million disbursement of the agency to the BIDA Foundation headed by Genuino’s son Erwin.

Genuino denied giving away imported rice during the mayoralty campaign of Erwin in Makati last May.

He said the allegations were “baseless and just a concocted story.”

He, however, admitted receiving rice donations in 2008, but stressed they were his personal stocks that he in turn donated to the government that same year.

McDonald’s had said that its large food transactions with Pagcor during Genuino’s time were legitimate.