GMA, kin demand Cayetano apology, retraction

President Arroyo and her family are demanding a "full and unconditional" retraction as well as a public apology from Taguig-Pateros Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano for alleging that they have secret bank accounts in Germany, Malacañang said yesterday.

At the same time, First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo dared Cayetano to open a $1-million escrow account in his presence on Tuesday to prove that the lawmaker could pay for his supposedly false allegations.

Mr. Arroyo earlier said Cayetano should pay him the "hundreds of millions of dollars" that the lawmaker claimed he (Arroyo) has if the allegation is proven to be false.

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said if the retraction and apology were not forthcoming, "the proper charges shall be filed and full justice and retribution shall be sought for the damage done."

"The President and the First Family will not take this vicious attack sitting down," Bunye said.

Mr. Arroyo said Cayetano should see him on Tuesday so he could open the escrow account for at least $1 million.

"Put your money where your mouth is... Stop grandstanding," Mr. Arroyo told Cayetano. "Open the escrow account and let’s go to Germany together. Let’s bring media people with us so that the truth will immediately come out."

Confident that he would prove Cayetano wrong, Mr. Arroyo had earlier challenged the congressman to prove his accusation. He said he would donate the money that Cayetano would pay him to the people. "Let’s not keep them waiting any longer," he asked Cayetano, who has accepted Mr. Arroyo’s challenge.

Mr. Arroyo described Cayetano’s accusation as a "blatant lie, and a malicious and fabricated accusation."

"I accept Cayetano’s challenge to make public this so-called bank account. If he can prove the bank account is mine, the money is his," the First Gentleman said.

"But if he cannot prove this, he has to pay me the alleged ‘hundreds of millions of dollars’ he claims is mine. I will donate this to the Filipino people," he said.

Mr. Arroyo said he was in Germany only for an overnight stay in 2000 and had not visited the country since.

"Congressman Cayetano, I am willing to accompany you and your witnesses to Germany to open that bank account," he said.

Cayetano has accepted Mr. Arroyo’s challenge. "He and his entire family should sign a waiver that we can look at their accounts anywhere in the world," he said.

During the debates prior to the voting of the House of Representatives’ committee on justice that junked the impeachment complaint against Mrs. Arroyo on Wednesday, Cayetano alleged that a member of the First Family was keeping a secret bank account in Hypovedreins Bank in Munich "with hundreds of millions of dollars - not pesos."

He said the account number was 87-570-23030-32100-62771571.

"We are looking at other accounts, including the Jose Pidal account. The difference is — one account has hundreds of millions of pesos, while the other has hundreds of millions of dollars," he said.

Presidential son and Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel Arroyo denied the allegation. "These are just mudslinging tactics and a figment of the imagination of the opposition. I hope the public doesn’t believe these kinds of innuendo," he said.

Trading accusations of the existence secret bank accounts allegedly held by government officials are commonplace in the country’s political scene.

Opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson was also previously accused of having undeclared bank accounts in the United States by the Arroyo administration.

Cayetano said the truth behind the First Family’s alleged hidden bank accounts and the charges of cheating in the 2004 election were in the seven boxes of evidence that they presented to the House committee on justice but which the panel refused to admit as evidence.

"Once the boxes are opened, all these will be revealed," he added.

Cayetano said Mrs. Arroyo should follow the example of her predecessor, deposed President Joseph Estrada, who answered the impeachment charges against him in his aborted Senate impeachment trial in 2000-2001.

Cayetano told Mrs. Arroyo’s allies that they could resolve the lingering political crisis by opening the seven boxes of evidence.

The so-called Jose Pidal accounts are attributed to the First Gentleman. In late 2003, Lacson accused the President’s husband of laundering some P260 million in secret accounts using the false name Jose Pidal and his secretary, Vicky Toh, and her brother Thomas as dummies.

The First Gentleman and the Tohs denied the allegation.

The Senate launched an investigation into the Jose Pidal accounts. The inquiry is still hanging. There are proposals that the chamber resume the probe.

Aside from secret bank accounts, Mrs. Arroyo’s political opponents seeking her impeachment are also alleging that she and her family have undeclared properties, including a six-hectare lot in Caloocan City and at least two residential and commercial buildings in downtown San Francisco, California.

President Arroyo’s husband has periodically been a lightning rod for opposition attacks against her and has repeatedly been accused of being an influence-peddler working behind the scenes under his wife’s protection.

In June last year, President Arroyo announced on television that her husband had volunteered to go on foreign self-exile to avoid corruption accusations and criticism that could eventually hurt her presidency.

Her husband left the following month with their eldest son, Juan Miguel Arroyo and his family. He returned in late October.

When her husband left for self-exile, Mrs. Arroyo was beginning to battle with allegations that she cheated in the 2004 presidential election after she owned up to improperly calling an election official during the vote count.

The accusations were compounded by allegations that her husband, son, and brother-in-law, Negros Occidental Rep. Ignacio Arroyo, took payoffs from illegal gambling barons.