Estafa raps vs Erap junked

The Makati City Prosecutor’s Office has dismissed the estafa charges filed by beauty queen Joelle Marie Henson Pelaez against former president Joseph Estrada and officials of United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB).

Assistant City Prosecutor Josefa Laurente threw it out after being convinced that the complainant lost her mother’s condominium units because she failed to pay for a loan.

In an eight-page resolution, Laurente dismissed the case based on how the respondents were able to prove how Pelaez loaned P5 million from UCPB, got the proceeds, but failed to settle her obligations.

Laurente said "this office finds that the acquisition by UCPB of the subject condominium units of the complainant’s mother to be regular and above the board."

Pelaez filed estafa charges against Estrada and bank officials Alfredo Bautista, Lorenzo Tan, Rafael Bueno Jr., Jeronimo Kiamko; San Miguel Corp. president Ramon Ang; and one Pia Guada.

She accused the former president of conspiring with UCPB officials to come up with "deceptive machinations" that resulted in the loss of her mother’s properties.

Pelaez even claimed that Estrada courted and gave her a P2 million check for a BMW, a gold Rolex watch with diamonds, and a trip to Hong Kong in 1999, a year after she met him through Annabelle Rama.

Ang, she claimed, offered her a business deal that would make her engage in dealership of products supposedly on instructions from Estrada.

Estrada, in his affidavit, said he met the beauty queen in 1998 and in 1999 noting that she kept asking for help about a problem her mother had with then Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Panfilo Lacson.

Setting aside Pelaez’s story about how Estrada allegedly had a hand in how she was fooled into losing her mother’s condominium units, Laurente said there was no fraud or deceit committed on the part of UCPB.

"The position of the complainant that they were divested of ownership of their condominium units through the fraudulent scheme of respondents cannot be sustained," she said.

Estrada praised the prosecutor’s decision, saying it vindicated him.

In a statement, Estrada added that the dismissal bolstered his P30-million libel suit against the beauty queen and her mother, Pelaez’s lawyer Dennis Funa and the publisher, editor-in-chief and a reporter of a newspaper that published a series of articles on Pelaez’s allegation that Estrada was involved in money laundering.

Estrada’s libel suit was elevated to the court by the Rizal Prosecutor’s Office last Thursday, according to a statement from the Estrada camp.

Estrada lawyer Rufus Rodriguez said the prosecutor’s decision should serve as a warning to Estrada’s political foes that they should "not to trifle with the law or to use our courts as a means to further their own personal or political interests." — With Mike Frialde