Senate defers petition to cancel Davidson Bangayan's passport

MANILA, Philippines - The Senate committee on agriculture and food is deferring the filing of a petition for the cancelation of passport against businessman Davidson Bangayan alias David Tan pending the formal elevation of perjury charges before a competent court, Sen. Cynthia Villar said Tuesday.

“As advised by our legal counsel, we have to go through the process. But we have filed the perjury complaint. On the issue of cancellation of passport, there should be a case filed before it is recommended for cancellation. There is a legal process in the cancelation of passport and we will go through that,” Villar said.

Villar,  who heads the Senate committee on agriculture and food, added that the Senate lawyers are still consolidating the criminal cases filed against Bangayan to determine if these can be used to bolster the Senate’s plan to seek for the cancelation of his passport.   

The committee will also gather records of the pilferage case before the Caloocan City court, which the Justice Department and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) used as basis of the warrant of arrest filed against Bangayan.

The Senate will resume its public hearings on Feb. 24.

Villar warned that contempt charges will be slapped against other resource persons subpoenaed by the committee but would continue not to show up in the upcoming hearings.

“We have subpoenaed all of them. If they don’t attend, they can be cited for contempt and ordered arrested. We have discussed that the committee must issue a warning first before the four (others) can be arrested if they fail to attend,” Villar said.

The senator referred to Eleonor Rodriguez, a broker and the one who assisted in the documentation of Albay rice shipment cooperatives; one Leah Echevaria, Elizabeth Faustino, and couple David and Judyline Lim.

Faustino was the 'consolidator' of the late Nixon Kua, a former journalist who reportedly got involved in rice trading. She had links with farmers’ cooperatives identified as Formosa Multi-Purpose Cooperative (MPC) (Ricardo R. Gatuz Jr.); Riverview Multi-Purpose Cooperative (Juanito Evangelista); Ugnayang Magsasaka sa Kaunlaran MPC (Felix Villena Sr.); GPI San Miguel MPC (Alfredo Cruz); Sitio Muzon Farmers MPC (Ronaldo S. Valdez) and Sta. Cecilia MPC (Zenaida Abanio).

Echeveria was the attorney-in-fact for 21 cooperatives that filed a civil case against National Food Authority (NFA) with Branch 217 of the RTC, Quezon City.

Records of the Senate committee also showed that Echeveria filed Civil Case No. Q-12-71913, where Judge Arenas ordered a Temporary Restraining Order against Agriculture Sec. Proceso Alcala, NFA administrator Angelito Banayo and Asst. Admin. Cordero.

Senate records revealed that the TRO prevented and restrained the NFA and DA officials from delaying or holding the release of import permits/memorandum of undertaking, imposing penalties, forfeiting the Performance Security Bonds/Deposits, cancelling the authority to import under the Tax Expenditure Subsidy, among others.

The Lim couple is engaged in businesses ranging from rice traiding, trucking and commodities. Mr. Lim attended one of the earlier hearings but he mentioned before the committee that his wife dealt with their business, prompting the Senate to summon Mrs. Judyline Lim.  The couple failed to attend the last public hearing.