Manila court acquits alleged jueteng collector for lack of evidence

An omen?

One of the alleged jueteng payola collectors of President Estrada was acquitted yesterday by a Manila court of graft charges and corrupting public officials, citing insufficiency of evidence.

An offshoot of the controversial 1995 congressional inquiry into the proliferation of jueteng in the country, the case against Rosario "Charing" Magbuhos was dismissed by Manila Judge Amalia Andrade saying "mere speculations and probabilities cannot be a substitute for the proof required by law."

Like the allegations that President Estrada received millions in jueteng money, Magbuhos was accused of sending jueteng cash to Malacañang for then Task Force on Anti-Gambling (TFAG) head Potenciano Roque, who held office at the Palace.

Roque estimated the protection money he received from Magbuhos to be about P1.8 million in TFAG’s three-year existence from 1986 to 1989 and P37 million from all the other gambling lords in that same period.

TFAG was disbanded in 1989 while the congressional inquiry, with Roque as the star witness, was in 1995 – the first time the massive influence of jueteng came to fore.

President Estrada is currently undergoing impeachment trial at the Senate for his involvement in jueteng, with his allies predicting an acquittal.

Based on the testimony of the President’s whistle-blower, his former ally Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis "Chavit" Singson, Magbuhos along with Bong Pineda, sent jueteng collection money to him for the President. The President, too, allegedly earned millions of pesos in the two years the jueteng bribe money was "centralize" by him.

"The lone testimony of the witness Potenciano "Chito" Roque claiming that the accused…went to Malacañang sometime in May, 1986 and introduced herself as a jueteng operator and offering a minimal amount of P5,000 a month without any corroborating evidence, the same could not be given any weight or credence," said the 14-page decision. Magbuhos, whose real name is Rosario Lee delos Santos, is said to be the gambling lord of Quezon Province, particularly Tiaong and San Pablo City.

Magbuhos was once the officer-in-charge mayor of Plaridel, Quezon as appointed by then President Corazon Aquino following the 1986 EDSA Revolution.

Roque told the court he initially refused the bribe but later accepted it until his operations chief, then Colonel Antonio Abellon Jr., urged him to seek a higher amount. Through a harassment-raid, the monthly payola was hiked to P50,000 a month for which Abellon reportedly served as the bagman.

Roque said his group collected a total of P600,000 from Mabuhos and "they saw to it that their collection should not be less than P1 million a month" from all the other jueteng payola collections.

Roque came forward during a Congress exposé by Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez, citing guilt as his reason for coming out after 10 years and also upon discovering that illegal gambling has grown bigger and that "gambling lords have also increased their influence on the political side."

Roque has since been under the government’s Witness Protection Program.

Magbuhos, for her part, denied all the allegations of Roque and even presented as her witness Abellon, who, while admitting to be Roque’s operation’s chief, claimed not knowing the accused nor ever served as bagman for his former boss. Both Magbuhos and Abellon claimed seeing each other for the first time during trial.

Abellon had been earlier separately charged by Roque with bribery and corruption of public officials before the Quezon City courts.

"Without any other evidence presented by the prosecution to establish the actual giving or delivery of the amount of P5,000 by the accused…to the witness Potenciano Chito Roque at his office in Malacañang Palace…simple justice demands that she be acquitted in this case," said Andrade.

On the other hand, a technicality was cited for the dismissal of the graft charges against Magbuhos, particularly the failure of the prosecution to also charge a public officer, a required element of the criminal charge, prompting the court to also order its dismissal.

There was actually a third case filed against Magbuhos but his, too, was dismissed halfway through trial because of lack of evidence.