Rapist-prof facing extradition by NBI

For 38 months starting 2007 the Office of the Solicitor General billed Manila airport authorities P264,000 a month for legal services. The amount represented personal allowances for 25 state lawyers and 15 non-legal staff ostensibly involved in the expropriation of Terminal-3. Total collected up to June 2010 was P10,032,000.

The OSG charging legal fees may be legal, but this one is bound to create a stink. The OSG Reform Law allows the Office to collect fees from state agencies it represents in lawsuits. But the Terminal-3 expropriation clearly was abused. While two to five state lawyers and staff normally are assigned per case, this one had 40 in all. The former solicitor general, five associates, 19 solicitors, and 15 secretaries divvied up the monthly P264,000. Each got from P20,000 to P5,000, depending on their place in the totem pole. Earlier during Sol-Gen Alfredo Benipayo’s term only three lawyers were put on the Terminal-3 case. Yet they did a yeoman’s job getting the Supreme Court to void the onerous Piatco-Fraport contract. Benipayo’s successors pulled out the original solicitors, inserting tyros unfamiliar with the case, with strict instructions not to compare notes. Reportedly the new bosses wanted to lose the expropriation, on instructions from on high.

Meantime RP, represented by private attorneys, emerged victorious in Fraport’s trade lawsuit in Washington and Piatco’s in Singapore. The OSG billings give rise to some sticky questions: Will Piatco-Fraport recognize the P10-million legal fees that drove up litigation costs? Was taking P10 million from the airport proper in light of government operating on deficit? What if an agency has no budget for legal fees, will the OSG still represent it?

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Let me just remind investigators of the bungled hostage rescue to look into one glaring item: How did the hostage-taker, discharged police captain Rolando Mendoza, obtain an assault rifle? Is it true that the M-16 he used to take and kill the Chinese hostages was his official issue? If so, why hadn’t the Manila police retrieved it since Mendoza’s dismissal in January? How many more government long and short arms are in the hands of fired or retired cops, and so can be used, borrowed or stolen for hostaging, robbery or murder?

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Finally justice is within grasp for a 16-year-old girl who cried rape by her Pampanga college professor in 2008. The NBI-Interpol is moving to extradite the accused, Arnel Atienza Ocampo, from Saudi Arabia. Lawmen were able to pinpoint Ocampo’s workplace in Jeddah from tips of co-workers. The girl’s plight, recently televised, was seen on Filipino channels in the Middle East, alerting overseas Filipinos about the wanted man. Earlier the foreign office, on request of the justice department, had cancelled Ocampo’s passport. He has been eluding two arrest warrants from the Angeles City court. Despite the immigration bureau’s hold-departure order, Ocampo was able to flee overseas weeks ago, apparently with help from influential persons.

Ocampo is charged in court with 32 counts of rape, half of these in relation to the Child Abuse Law. The girl’s parents also had complained of seduction and rape to authorities of the Holy Angels University (HAU) in Angeles City. To the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) they had also cried betrayal of trust and exposure of their child to sexual exploitation by the HAU.

It turned out during investigation that Ocampo was a serial sexual abuser. The nearby Magalang Institute had sacked him for similarly sexually victimizing a 16-year-old high school student. Allegedly he had a string of cases in other schools in the province. Yet he was hired by the HAU, for which the parents accused it of negligence before the CHED.

The parents accused the HAU of conducting a mock probe of the administrative case of sexual harassment. The three panelists allegedly sided with Ocampo, barring the father from the campus while allowing the accused to roam freely. The girl was threatened with humiliating publicity of her complaint, and disallowed to see her parents, not even for lunch, during the two-day grilling. This enabled Ocampo to confront the scared girl. Intimidated, she signed a recantation, which Ocampo used in defense in the school case. Supposedly he and the girl never had sexual relation, yet admitted the opposite to the prosecutor. The parents’ criminal suit for unjust vexation was dismissed on grounds of prescription, so they filed instead for civil damages.

A bubbly, outgoing honor student before the sexual abuse, the girl began to flunk. Her parents transferred her to a new school, and she is undergoing psychiatric counseling.

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Filipinos need not vacation in Hong Kong. Touring the Philippines is infinitely more fun. Sights are varied, shopping is fulfilling (for the self and the economy), and smiling comes natural even with language barriers.

Bohol, for one, not only has sun, sea and sand, but also the Chocolate Hills, a manmade forest, and riverboat cruises. There are tarsier preserves, a bee farm, and fireflies in mangroves. One can watch dolphins at dawn, snorkel or scuba dive at noon, and peruse centuries-old churches before dusk. Food is cheap and culture is rich.

Family cottages and barkada dormitories can be rented on Balicasag Island from the government’s Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority. The TIEZA can also book the side tours: Manila telephones (02) 5242495, 5242513, or 5241535; in Bohol (038) 5010674 or 5026001; Balicasag resort manager Ms. Maria Elena Go (0920) 9382515 or (0917) 3061791. E-mail [email protected]; website www.philtourism.gov.ph.

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“Storms begin to rage when your faith-life begins to falter.” Shafts of Light, Fr. Guido Arguelles, SJ

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E-mail: [email protected]