Fund sources of Estrada Foundation probed

The prosecution panel will ask the Sandiganbayan to freeze the assets of the Erap Foundation Inc. if investigation shows they came from jueteng payoffs, Assistant Ombudsman Dennis Villa Ignacio said yesterday.

Villa Ignacio said the foundation has generated P72 million in funding from the time it was put up during the Estrada administration to the present. A panel is investigating the sources of the funds.

Of the P72 million, P62 million, he said, is in a time deposit in a bank "which we have yet to identify."

Lawyer Raymond Fortun, spokesman of former President Joseph Estrada, confirmed, in an earlier television interview, the existing funds of the foundation.

Fortun said the money remains intact in a bank because the Erap Foundation cannot implement its projects with the former president in jail on plunder charges.

He said the foundation was created to help poor Filipino families.

Villa Ignacio said Estrada still chairs the foundation which holds office at his residence at 1 Polk st., North Greenhills, San Juan. — Jose Rodel Clapano