Palace: It's up to Jocjoc to talk

MANILA, Philippines -  It’s up to former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn “Jocjoc” Bolante if he would confess to what he knows about the P728-million fertilizer fund scam in 2004.

This is the position of Malacañang, deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said yesterday.

“It’s already in their best judgment if they want to do that,” Valte told state-run radio dzRB when asked to comment on the possibility of Bolante turning state witness. “Quite a long time has passed. They might have already pondered it.”

“We could not judge them. We don’t know what’s on their minds. And we don’t have enough basis (to say that Bolante should testify against the big fish in the case),” she explained further.

The Office of the Ombudsman finally filed charges of plunder against Bolante and several others, almost seven years after the case was filed before the anti-graft prosecutors, and a few weeks before the impeachment trial of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez starts on May 9.

Valte, however, refused to comment on whether the Palace would welcome Bolante as state witness, saying they haven’t read the “finer details yet” and that it is the Ombudsman’s initiative to recommend a potential state witness to the Sandiganbayan.

The law only allows the least guilty suspect to be utilized as a state witness and the most guilty should be indicted.

Prosecutors from the House of Representatives said the plunder charges against Bolante and former agriculture secretary Luis Lorenzo Jr. are designed to fail, just like in other cases where the Ombudsman filed defective indictments.

Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas Jr., House justice committee chairman, said the charges against the two former agriculture officials “could suffer the same fate as those filed (with the Sandiganbayan) against (former justice secretary) Nani (Hernando) Perez.”

He said the Sandiganbayan dismissed the case against Perez “due to inordinate delay (in its filing).”

Ilocos Norte Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas, senior vice chairman of the House justice committee, said the delay in filing of graft charges led to Gutierrez’s impeachment.

“Precisely, we impeached her for such inordinate delay, which is tantamount to betrayal of public trust, and will prosecute and seek her removal from office by the Senate,” Fariñas said.

In dismissing the graft and extortion charges against Perez, the Sandiganbayan ruled that the five-year delay in the filing of the case violated the former justice secretary’s rights to due process.

In December 2002, then Manila Rep. Mark Jimenez filed a complaint for plunder against Perez, whom he accused of extorting $2 million from him in exchange for his non-inclusion in the cases filed against former President Joseph Estrada.

The evidence against former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s first justice secretary included a paper trail on the funds that Jimenez claimed he had given Perez through banker Ernest Escaler and which had ended up in bank accounts in Switzerland.

In January 2007, Gutierrez filed charges of graft, extortion and falsification against Perez, who was her former boss in the Department of Justice. The charges did not include plunder.

The anti-graft court dismissed the charges against Perez in November 2008.

Tupas said Gutierrez’s real objective in deciding to file charges against Lorenzo, Bolante and others “is to cover up her deliberate inaction” on the fertilizer fund scam.

He said the Ombudsman intends to use the filing as part of her defense in her coming Senate trial.

“But of course the acts constituting betrayal of public trust have already been committed,” he said.

Tupas heads the 11-member House team that will prosecute Gutierrez in her Senate trial, slated to begin when Congress resumes session on May 9.

Fariñas and Rep. Neri Colmenares of the party-list group Bayan Muna are part of the House prosecution team.

Colmenares said the Ombudsman’s belated conclusion of its preliminary investigation into the P728-million fertilizer scam “was intended to lead to its dismissal.”

He said Lorenzo, Bolante and other former government officials and private persons whom the Ombudsman would charge before the Sandiganbayan would most likely get off the hook.

He said the Sandiganbayan has ruled in some cases that long delays in the filing of charges against respondents constitute violation of their rights to due process.

He stressed that the decision of the Ombudsman’s office to file charges against Lorenzo, Bolante and others would not weaken the impeachment charges against Gutierrez.

“The fact that she took an unreasonable period of time to file the charges is betrayal of public trust,” he stressed.

He said the charges against the former agriculture officials “will backfire on the Ombudsman” if the evidence against them is the same as that gathered by the Senate.

Colmenares said Gutierrez is still trying to protect former President and now Pampanga Rep. Arroyo “by naming Bolante as the mastermind.”

The Senate committee on agriculture, chaired by then Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr., investigated the fertilizer fund scam in 2006. The committee recommended the filing of appropriate charges against those involved in the irregularity.

The Senate committee tagged Bolante as the brains behind the mishandling of P728 million in fertilizer funds, which Malacañang released to allies of then President Arroyo two months before the May 2004 presidential election.

In that election, Mrs. Arroyo beat the late actor Fernando Poe Jr. by about one million votes.

The political opposition then claimed that the fertilizer funds were used to build up Arroyo’s campaign kitty and ensure her victory in the polls.  

Perjury raps withdrawn

Meanwhile, the Pasay City prosecutor’s office withdrew the three counts of perjury earlier filed against a witness who had accused businessman Jaime Paule of involvement in the P728-million fertilizer scam at the agriculture department.

In his motion to withdraw information, prosecutor Luis Christopher Ballelos explained that witness Leonicia Marco-Llarena asked the justice department to review their findings and that Justice Undersecretary Leah Tanodra-Amamento should issue a resolution reversing it.

“Wherefore, the assailed resolution is hereby reversed and set aside. The city prosecutor of Pasay is directed to withdraw the three informations for perjury against Llarena, pending before [Pasay’s] Metropolitan Trial Court Branch 47,” Ballelos quoted Armamento’s resolution.

Paule charged Llarena after she identified him as the conduit between Bolante and a foundation that facilitated the release of the multi-million fund.

Paule, Llarena, and Bolante were among those who were recently recommended by the Ombudsman’s special panel to be charged with plunder for their alleged involvement in the scam.

Llarena, president of Dane Publishing House Inc., said she helped Paule by acting as a guarantor of Feshan Philippines, one of the suppliers of fertilizer involved in the scam, in dealing with the Department of Agriculture.

The money intended for farmers was allegedly diverted to the campaign kitty of Arroyo in 2004. 

Paule, whose daughter worked as writer for Llarena, denied the allegations, including his association with Bolante.

He said his business dealings were mainly with the Department of Public Works and Highways and the Light Rail Transit Corp.

In September 2009, second assistant city prosecutor Dolores Rillera found probable cause against Llarena and forwarded the case before the court.

In March 2011, the mediation between the camps of Paule and Llarena failed to reach an agreement, leaving Judge Eliza Yu of MTC Branch 47 to push through with the trial. 

Llarena, in her counter-affidavit, maintained the credence of her Senate testimony and said Paule “may be liable as he denied that he knew anything about the scheme.”

She said Paule repeatedly denied knowing any of the persons involved in the scam, “but a photograph” taken during her birthday and the testimony of four other witnesses “belie his assertion.”

Llarena was referring to a photograph presented in the Senate, where Paule, his wife and daughter were seated beside Redentor Antolin and Julie Gregorio of Feshan Philippines. Paule denied the authenticity of the picture, prompting the Senate Blue Ribbon committee to send him to the Pasay City jail.

For her part, Yu, in her April 8 order, gave Paule’s lawyer Constantino Navarro II 10 days to file his comment. After which, Yu will decide whether or not to grant the motion. With Aie Balagtas See