MANILA, Philippines - The suppliers of the helicopters that were sold to the Philippine National Police (PNP) in 2009 implicated former first gentleman Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo during yesterday’s Senate Blue Ribbon committee hearing.
The revelation of two businessmen who were grilled by the senators paved the way for the committee to invite Arroyo to the next hearing.
However, Arroyo’s lawyer said there was nothing in the Senate inquiry that would incriminate his client on allegations that he pressured the PNP into purchasing his helicopters and passed them off as brand-new.
Lion Air Inc. owner Archibald Po revealed that he personally delivered $700,000 to the former first gentleman in his law office at the LTA Building in Makati City on April 16, 2010.
The amount represented the payment for two Raven helicopters priced at $350,000 each, Arroyo’s selling price for each unit.
Po said he personally delivered the money to Arroyo, who turned it over to Rowena del Rosario, said to be his bookkeeper.
The transaction took place three days after the PNP paid Manila Aerospace Products Trading Corp. (Maptra) the remaining balance of P49,689,401.80 for the P105-million deal on April 13, 2010.
The senators found the amount exorbitant since the price of five-year old Robinson R44 Raven I helicopters is only between $260,000 to $280,000 per unit.
Hilario de Vera, Maptra president and general manager, also claimed that Po received P3.505 million for what he demanded as commission for his “extra efforts” in the sale.
He admitted that they split P7 million as part of the deal.
Amid questions of overpricing, de Vera said no PNP officials benefited from the deal in terms of commissions.
Prior to this, he said Po asked him to sell “without questions” the two Robinson R44 Raven pre-owned helicopters to the PNP in 2009, shortly after he approached him when he got the approval for the purchase of three light operation helicopters.
Po owns Lion Air, whose company is the official distributor of Robinsons R44 Raven I helicopters in the country.
He has been involved in the airline industry since the 1980s.
He said he also owns Asian Spirit under which five helicopters, supposedly owned by Arroyo, are registered.
“I have instruction from FG to sell and deliver it to the PNP. FG said he wants his three helicopters sold,” de Vera said in Filipino, quoting Po during their conversation on March 25, 2009 at the height of negotiations for the PNP procurement of the three supposedly brand-new helicopters.
In a conversation that followed between them, de Vera added in his testimony that Po told him the first gentleman merely wanted the PNP to get one brand new helicopter.
“FG said only one brand new. If you don’t want to follow you can’t sell anything because I won’t be able to help you, that’s what FG wants,” said De Vera, quoting Po anew in his affidavit which he read and submitted to the Senate Blue Ribbon committee.
Apparently, the two helicopters offered by Po to Maptra were two of the five helicopters allegedly owned by Arroyo.
Puno knows about the deal?
De Vera said he initially asked for a quotation of “fully equipped brand-new Raven II and two brand-new Raven I standards” in connection with the PNP’s requirements.
He said it was during these talks with Po that the latter mentioned the names of Arroyo and former Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno.
De Vera also indicated that Puno may have had a hand in the sale, recalling a conversation with police Director Romeo Hilomen on Nov. 4, 2009, when he was doing a follow-up for the payment of the 50 percent of the contract.
The conversation also indicated that the PNP officials knew that the two light operational helicopters to be delivered then were not brand-new.
De Vera said Hilomen told him “not to call Secretary Puno because they were being pressured, and added that he knew that the choppers were not new and he didn’t like it.”
Hilomen, who was PNP comptroller at that time, said he recalled that de Vera followed up the payment for the second installment of the deal but does not recall any conversation about Sec. Puno.
Bolstering his belief that Arroyo may have a hand in the sale, de Vera noted that the PNP inspection team did not complain about the choppers being second hand when they were delivered on Sept. 24, 2009.
At the start of the hearing, Po admitted in his testimony that Arroyo asked him to procure five helicopters sometime in 2003, months prior to the May 2004 presidential elections.
He said Arroyo initially wanted to charter helicopters from him, but since all available units were already loaned to Fernando Poe Jr., he suggested that he instead buy new helicopters.
Poe was then running against former President Arroyo.
According to Po, Mike Arroyo remitted to him $475,000 to jumpstart the process of acquiring the helicopters from Robinsons in the United States.
Enrile: There’s bid rigging at PNP
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile lambasted PNP officials over what he said was the apparent practice in the agency of “bid-rigging.”
Citing a report submitted to his office by PNP chief Director General Raul Bacalzo, Enrile said he saw a pattern that there was always a failure of bidding in the procurements of the agency.
“Evidently this is a technique that has been used (by) the police previously to allow negotiations with people favored to supply equipment. This is one thing that I noticed that several procurements, that there were calls for bids, nobody qualifies and then failed bids. I think we better look into this system,” he said.
Enrile said the difference between the proposal of Maptra and the other bidders was only P2,000 but the contract was awarded to Maptra.
Senate Blue Ribbon chair Teofisto Guingona III, on the other hand, said that there are witnesses that can be invited to the hearing to establish further links of the former first gentleman on the issue.
Guingona also expressed belief that there is “very strong probable cause” to prosecute Arroyo.
“There is no paper trail. There is testimonial evidence. There is no paper trail because all the transactions were done in cash. Purely testimonial. And circumstantial also because of the flight log that will be submitted, showing that they use the helicopters very frequently, plus the testimony of the pilot who said that he did fly the Arroyo family,” he said.
Although the helicopters were registered under Asian Spirit, Sen. Franklin Drilon expressed belief that the choppers were owned by Arroyo and that the PNP officials were dictated to enter into the procurement of the used choppers.
Drilon added that Po has no reason to assert “that this is FG’s helicopters unless this was the truth. He was under oath and he stated that the helicopters were placed in the name of Asian Spirit but they did not really buy it and the real owner is first gentleman Mike Arroyo,” the senator said in Filipino.
He added that Arroyo cannot claim that the Senate lacks jurisdiction over him because he is a private citizen.
“Being a private citizen is not an exemption from being called in the Blue Ribbon hearing if in fact there is basis to be called and here there is basis for him to be invited,” Drilon said.
Arroyo lawyer: My client is innocent
But Arroyo’s lawyer Inocencio Ferrer said his client has nothing to do with the controversial transaction.
He said he is also planning to file perjury charges against Po and de Vera for giving false statements under oath.
“Based on what we’ve heard in the hearing, there’s nothing that would implicate my client,” Ferrer told The STAR. “There’s been a lot of namedropping, left and right. I think they are just looking for somebody to blame because I heard they’re having a corporate dispute or a soured transaction.”
He said all the allegations of Po and de Vera were false and baseless.
“Where are the documents? It’s really very easy to make stories, especially if it is to hit someone but there are no documents at all (to show that Arroyo owned the helicopters),” he said, noting that the testimonies and affidavits of the two witnesses were “contradictory and at odds with each other.”
“If you lied in one of your statements, then the entire testimony must be disregarded,” Ferrer said.
He said he has yet to speak with Arroyo, who did not listen to the hearing upon doctors’ advice.
“I would advise him to attend (the next hearing) but then we would also wait for the advice of his doctors. Let’s remember that he almost died a few years ago,” he said, referring to the heart surgery Arroyo underwent in 2007.
Keeping an eye on the Arroyos
Because of Po and de Vera’s testimonies, Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada called on the Bureau of Immigration (BI) to put Arroyo on its watchlist to ensure his presence in the next hearing.
Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office Secretary Ricky Carandang said it was a “good idea” to put the former first gentleman in the watchlist but it would be up to the Department of Justice (DOJ) to make the decision on the matter.
Earlier, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said she was contemplating on placing former president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on the watchlist because of the many charges she was facing.
Carandang said he could not comment on the details of the investigation but “we welcome anything that will deliver to the public the truth.”
He said that it would also be up to the DOJ to determine whether the witnesses coming out in the Senate would be given protection.
“Right now, they’re testifying before the Senate. Technically it’s part of the responsibility of the Senate and we’ll leave it to the DOJ to determine if they would be placed under protective custody. I’m aware though that they are asking for that. So I think we’ll have a decision on that very soon,” he said. – Aurea Calica, Paolo Romero