MJ to fight racketeering, money laundering in RP

Manila Rep. Mario Batacan Crespo, better known as Mark Jimenez, is fighting extradition to the United States for tax fraud, illegal election campaign contributions and other charges.

His first official act yesterday as a member of the 12th Congress was to file a bill which he described as his version of the US Racketeering-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, often referred to as the RICO Law.

In filing Bill No. 9, Jimenez said organized crime has become "so pervasive" in the Philippines that Congress has to enact an all-encompassing law to stop it.

He said besides curbing organized crime and racketeering, his measure also seeks to punish money laundering here.

The term of members of the 12th Congress started at noon last Saturday. However, yesterday was supposed to be their first working day.

Several days before the start of his term, Jimenez wrote to the House secretary general requesting that the first slot available in the roster of bills filed be reserved for him.

Actually, a version of the US RICO law was filed in the last Congress by a group of congressmen led by then Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez.

But it remained in the legislative freezer until the 11th Congress ended on June 30.

Jimenez was a close friend of ousted President Joseph Estrada, who once described him as a corporate genius. In an affidavit which government prosecutors intend to use against the disgraced leader, the neophyte lawmaker said he gave Estrada hundreds of millions of pesos as commissions in transactions involving state funds.

He is among the so-called "early birds" who filed bills yesterday.

The earliest of them is Rep. Emilio Macias of Negros Oriental. A physician, Macias wants all Filipinos to be covered by medical insurance, which is a multibillion-dollar business abroad.

Rep. Augusto Syjuco Jr. of Iloilo, on the other hand, is proposing that Abu Sayyaf members and others involved in kidnapping-for-ransom be punished by dismemberment of their body parts such as legs and arms.

However, a colleague of Syjuco, who did not want to be identified, doubted the constitutionality of his proposal.

The congressman said the Constitution prohibits inhuman punishment.