Here’s what 2nd envelope contains

The documents that were excluded by the Senate impeachment tribunal would have belied the claim of businessman Jaime Dichaves that he owns controversial bank accounts which prosecutors claim to be owned by President Estrada.

The documents, copies of which were obtained by the Pinoy Times yesterday, reveal transaction details, amounting to some P1.2 billion, of secret bank accounts under the name "Jose Velarde."

According to one of the documents, 17 checks amounting to P175 million were drawn from the Allied Bank head office branch account of a certain "Kelvin Garcia" and deposited in the Jose Velarde account.

Nine of the Kelvin Garcia checks were for P10 million, five for P5 million and three for P20 million.

House prosecutors have claimed that "Kelvin Garcia" is another fictitious name of Mr. Estrada.

The excluded documents also show that a check, dated Sept. 8, 1999, was deposited into the Velarde account from the Far East Bank and Trust Co. (FEBTC) Cubao-Araneta Center branch account under the name "Jaime Dichaves or Abby Dichaves." The check was for P20 million.

Another transaction reflected in the excluded documents showed a check deposit, dated Nov. 8, 1999 and amounting to P189.7 million, drawn from the account of "Jaime or Abby Dichaves" from the same FEBTC branch.

Businessman and presidential crony Jaime Dichaves has claimed to own the Jose Velarde accounts even as Mr. Estrada denies owning the account.

However, Equitable PCI Bank senior vice president Clarissa Ocampo had earlier testified that Mr. Estrada signed in her presence trust account documents involving a transaction amounting to P500 million, using the name "Jose Velarde."

House prosecutor and Makati City Rep. Joker Arroyo on Tuesday told the impeachment court that the excluded documents referred to Equitable PCI Bank savings account no. 0160-62501-5 which totaled some P3.3 billion.

He claimed that P500 million of the P3.3 billion was transferred to a trust account and subsequently loaned to Wellex Group Inc. owned by presidential crony William Gatchalian on Feb. 4 last year, corroborating the testimony of Ocampo.

The excluded documents would have proven that some P142 million of the P3.3 billion was also transferred to current account No. 000110-25495-4 and later deposited in the account of Jose Luis "Sel" Yulo with the Bank of Philippine Islands, he added.

The prosecution asserts that the P142 million eventually found its way to the BPI account of St. Peter Holdings which purchased the P86-million "Boracay" mansion in New Manila, Quezon City for presidential mistress Laarni Enriquez.

Arroyo alleged that a number of known presidential cronies deposited huge amounts in the Velarde savings account, including Mark Jimenez with P180 million; Dante Tan, P300 million; Jaime Dichaves, P180 million; Kelvin Garcia, P180 million; and Lucio Co, amount unknown.Espiritu has other documentary evidence?

Meanwhile, veteran banker and former Finance Secretary Edgardo Espiritu claimed he had documents showing that Mr. Estrada directed him to favor transactions involving several presidential cronies.

Espiritu fled to the United States after he testified on Jan. 11-12 that Mr. Estrada admitted to him that he had earned and eventually lost a lot of money in trading the shares of listed gaming firm Best World (BW) Resources Corp. (now known as Fairmont Holdings Inc.).

The former finance secretary, in a telephone interview with the ABS-CNB News Channel before dawn yesterday, also said that Mr. Estrada admitted he was receiving money a few days after assuming office.

"It feels good to be President. Money keeps on coming even if you don’t make contracts," Espiritu quoted the President as saying.

Asked what documentary evidence he had, Espiritu said he had documents showing that Mr. Estrada ordered him to favor Mark Jimenez, Lucio Tan, Lucio Co and Jaime Dichaves and their pet projects.

Pressed to give an example, Espiritu cited the IMPSA power plant project, supposedly involving Mark Jimenez, as the first among many allegedly anomalous transactions.

He claimed that Mr. Estrada ordered him to change the power plant project’s terms of reference and had a performance undertaking inserted into the project contract.

Espiritu claimed that Mr. Estrada was so insistent on the project that Espiritu and Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Felipe Medalla even threatened to resign if Mr. Estrada pursued the project.

Espiritu, finance secretary from 1998 to 2000, lamented the prospect of harder times for the country’s already-battered economy.

"If he doesn’t leave, the poor which he says he champions will have a harder time because the government will no longer have money for basic social services," he said, adding that the country’s creditors are no longer willing to extend assistance to the country.

NGO slams alleged Erap earnings

At the same time, cause-oriented think-tank Ibon Foundation also lamented that the P3.3 billion in the Equitable PCI Bank accounts allegedly owned by the President was more than three times bigger than the government’s social welfare budget.

Ibon Foundation said the amount could have been put to better use by financing various social services to help uplift the living conditions of the majority.

"The P3.3 billion ‘mother account’ in Equitable PCI Bank is more than three times bigger than the entire budget of the Department of Social Welfare and Development last year pegged at P1.04 billion," the group said in a statement.

The group noted that the account even surpassed the entire budget of the agriculture department last year which amounted to P3.27 billion.

VACC to charge Narvasa

Meanwhile, the anti-crime group Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) said it will charge with plunder former Chief Justice Andres Narvasa.

VACC chairman and president Dante Jimenez said his group "deplores the extent of corruption in the Estrada administration."

Jimenez claimed that Narvasa, head of Mr. Estrada’s defense panel in the impeachment trial and former chairman of the Philippine National Bank (PNB), was involved in granting a P600 million loan to BW Resources Corp. at the behest of Mr. Estrada.

The VACC cited the testimony of Espiritu who claimed Mr. Estrada influenced the PNB board of directors, then chaired by Narvasa, into approving the loan.

"The Espiritu testimony showed the contemptible workings of the Estrada administration where influence-peddling and massive corruption have become a norm among the President’s minions," the VACC said.

"As in the case of plunder we earlier filed against President Estrada, we stand firm and uncompromising in our conviction that no one is above the law, this time not even a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court," Jimenez added.

Angara suggests legal remedy to prosecution

Meanwhile, Executive Secretary Edgardo Angara said that the billions allegedly deposited in several bank accounts under the name of Jose Velarde may be subject to forfeiture if it can be proven that Mr. Estrada actually owns the accounts.

Angara said the complainants in the impeachment trial can opt to take this route of action from a lawyer’s point of view.

Angara said this course of action may be availed in case the testimonies of Equitable PCI Bank senior vice president Clarissa Ocampo and bank lawyer Manuel Curato will be excluded from the impeachment trial.

Angara, who was a respected corporate lawyer and name partner of ACCRA Law Office, rendered this opinion during the weekly breakfast forum of the Greenhills Walkers Club in San Juan.

"You’ve got to show that it’s ill-gotten and you initiate forfeiture proceedings under the Anti-Graft Act and that also will take some time," Angara pointed out.

"I think that’s the procedure allowed under the law, that you must initiate a forfeiture suit," Angara said.

Angara expressed surprise on the "defeatist" attitude of the 11-man House prosecution panel because this option was still open to them. – With Cecille Suerte Felipe.