Prosecutors 'dumped own witness' vs Garcia

No wonder Ombudsman special prosecutors are saying their proof of Gen. Carlos Garcia’s plundering is weak. They themselves weakened it. After their star witness testified in 2007 to Garcia’s embezzlement of P200 million, they produced five others in 2008 to debunk her. They then began bargaining with Garcia to plead guilty to lesser offenses and gain bail. All this, according to sources in the Ombudsman and the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG).

The OSG is looking into likely misdeeds in the dumping of Heidi Mendoza, the state auditor who reviewed Garcia’s financial shenanigans. “Nilaglag nila siya,” an OSG source remarked about the prosecutors’ odd handling of their star witness. “First they put her on the Sandiganbayan stand again and again for three months in 2007 to attest to her findings. Then they proceeded to have five accountants of the Armed Forces of the Philippines demolish her revelations. What gives?”

”It’s like we wanted to lose,” an Ombudsman insider said. “I hope it wasn’t on purpose.” The STAR obtained transcripts of Mendoza’s testimonies in Sept.-Nov. 2007 and Oct.-Dec. 2008, about six inches thick.

Mendoza had served the Commission on Audit for two decades, till 2008. In 2004 then-Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo tasked her to subject Garcia’s financial transactions as AFP comptroller to a fine-tooth comb. It was after the general’s sons were caught sneaking $100,000 cash into the US, and his wife narrated to feds how they routinely took multimillion-peso gifts from military suppliers.

Mendoza found particularly dubious the AFP financial records of 2002. Among her major findings were that Garcia had filched from the United Nations Contingency Fund and the Balikatan Fund.

The P200-million UN Fund was for the Philippine peacekeeping force to East Timor, while the Balikatan was for US war games with the AFP. A Sandigan source told The STAR that, from friends’ accounts, the soldiers’ UN stipends were delayed. The number of Filipino participants in the Balikatan allegedly was padded from the actual three to a ghost 75.

After Mendoza’s smoking gun the Ombudsman prosecutors called in five new witnesses from the AFP accounting division. Corroborating each other, the accountants said that while the P200 million puzzlingly was transferred from a state to a private bank, nothing went missing. Specifically the P50 million that Mendoza swore disappeared in 2002 supposedly turned up in subsequent reconciliation of bank records. So they re-entered the figures in the AFP books of accounts. Not one of the witnesses actually saw the money, though, only the bank statements and passbooks.

All five witnesses reported to then-AFP chief accountant Generoso del Castillo Jr. Three of them said that del Castillo either instructed them to make or approved their corrections of book entries, to reflect the P50 million plus P5 million interest.

Del Castillo in turn reported directly to Garcia as AFP chief finance officer at the time. News reports in 2004-2005 had linked del Castillo, with AFP budget officer Col. George Rabusa, to Garcia’s fund scams. Both were suspended and underwent investigation.

An OSG lawyer said the Ombudsman prosecutors should have acted swiftly when the new witnesses belied the star witness. “They should have recalled them for redirect examination, and had them declared as hostile witnesses,” the lawyer noted. Another source said the OSG would review the hearing transcripts to determine if the dumping of Mendoza was systematic.

Mendoza appeared in an ABS-CBN News exclusive last Friday, saying the case against Garcia was strong. This was contrary to what the prosecutors claimed during five days of media blitz the previous week. “I am confident that, yes, we have the evidence,” Mendoza said on video. “But (as to) the appreciation of the evidence, of course, I have to leave it to the respective courts.” (http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/video/nation/01/21/11/exclusive-ex-coa-auditor-says-there’s-enough-evidence-vs-carlos-garcia).

The OSG is intervening to undo Garcia’s hasty plea deal, bail and release, all last Dec. 16, 2010. Solicitor General Jose Anselmo Cadiz finds irregular the plea bargain made after the prosecution finished presenting its evidence. His assistant Amparo Cabotaje-Tang says the Sandigan, by granting P60,000-bail, virtually has approved the guilty pleas to direct bribery and facilitating money laundering. The Ombudsman will drop the P303-million plunder rap. Instead Garcia will return only P135 million, and his wife and three sons will be exonerated.

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Life, it’s said, is a series of habits occasionally disturbed by thoughts. René B. Azurin habitually looks at the big picture, then writes down his thoughts in relation to hot issues of the day. That’s how he sways others to his strategic thinking.

In his book Power and Privilege Azurin tears at the trivial posturing of our national rulers. Pooh-poohing such “big reforms” as posting pork barrel spending on the Congress website or price control or increasing personal exemptions for income taxpayers, he offers long-term options. Why not scrap the pork barrel altogether? Or enrich the supply of basic goods to stabilize prices? And simplify the income-tax system?

Power and Privilege consists of three- to four-page essays on politics, the economy and government, originally published as Azurin’s columns, Strategic Perspective, in BusinessWorld.

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E-mail: [email protected]