NBI subpoena on Cayetano possible – Matibag

MANILA, Philippines — The National Bureau of Investigation may soon summon Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano to explain his role in the Philippine Southeast Asian Games Organizing Committee (PHISGOC), the private foundation he headed, tasked to organize the 2019 SEA Games and which is now being probed for alleged failure to liquidate public funds.

NBI Director Melvin Matibag said it’s “possible” that Cayetano may be subpoenaed, depending on the testimonies of PHISGOC officials the bureau is about to summon this week.

Subpoenas will be issued to chief operating officer Ramon Suzara, currently the president of the Asian Volleyball Confederation; chief financial officer Dexter Estacio; corporate secretary Monica Ann Mitra and board members Donaldo Caringal, Tomas Carrasco Jr. and John Lester Buenconsejo.

Notably, Cayetano’s name is not present in PHISGOC’s general information sheets provided by the NBI, at least from the years 2019 to 2021.

“That is a problem. It’s very clear – even if you ask a lawyer – that before you become chairman, you should be a board member. If you’re not a board member, then how did you become the chairman?” Matibag said yesterday.

The NBI chief added that he received documents that the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) appointed Cayetano as interim chairman of PHISGOC and instructed him to incorporate it.

Cayetano, at the time, was still the foreign affairs secretary.

While the POC formed PHISGOC as an ad hoc committee to oversee preparations for the 2019 SEA Games, Cayetano formed a different body, the PHISGOC Foundation Inc., with his inner circle as incorporators.

Matibag also laid out some of the legal dilemmas that Cayetano has to explain.

“First of all, why are you presenting yourself as chairman when you’re not part of the board? Second, if you acted as chairman even if you’re not the chairman, that is an ultra vires act – that is outside of the scope – because anything that’s being done by a corporation, whether it’s a non-governmental organization or not, should be through a board resolution,” the NBI chief said.

“We will find those board resolutions and we will ask Tats Suzara, who stood as chairman, why he is not functioning as chairman,” he added.

The NBI will also coordinate with the Office of the Ombudsman regarding Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon, whose case on the matter was dismissed in 2021. Dizon was chief of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority when it entered into a joint venture agreement with a Malaysian company to build the New Clark City Phase 1A.

The bureau is also looking into claims by Sen. Panfilo Lacson that Cayetano benefited from alleged ghost flood-control projects in Taguig. The city is the bailiwick of the Cayetanos, where the senator’s wife, Lani, is the incumbent mayor.

Alan hits ‘minion’

Cayetano on Sunday branded Matibag a “minion” of the administration, a remark that the NBI chief just shrugged off.

“Let him be because, I think, that’s his way of attracting the public’s attention,” Matibag said.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice maintained that evidence-based investigation should prevail in the NBI’s pursuit of the 2019 SEA Games spending, saying it respects its attached agency’s “independence relative to their mandate to pursue investigations.”

DOJ Secretary Fredderick Vida said there was no order from them for the NBI to act on the matter.

“This is pursuant to the mandate of the NBI to pursue all these,” Vida told reporters.

Asked if the NBI inquiry might “distract” senators during the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, Vida said it should not.

Taguig high roller

Meanwhile, Sen. Panfilo Lacson yesterday alleged that a Taguig engineer lost nearly P500 million in casino gambling under two aliases, as he escalated his public feud with Cayetano and vowed to pursue evidence on alleged ghost flood control projects in the city.

In an interview over True FM, Lacson said his camp had obtained records showing the city engineer accumulating a combined “win-loss” record of nearly P500 million while using two different aliases.

“It’s not a district engineer. It’s a city engineer. I have the records. He used two aliases. His win-loss record under one alias was P374 million and under the other, P124 million,” Lacson said.

“So if a city engineer can gamble that much in casinos, does the local government not know that its city engineer is that wealthy?” he added.

Lacson said the alleged casino records form part of a broader investigation into what he described as ghost, substandard and defective flood control projects in Taguig. — Mark Ernest Villeza, Ghio Ong, Marc Jayson Cayabyab