General playing heroics in chopper scam report

The chief investigator of the police chopper scam is playing heroics — at the expense of the senators and their informants who actually cracked the case.

Not only that. In filing overkill non-bailable charges of plunder against Mike Arroyo and other principals, that chief police prober could be ensuring their acquittal.

On the other hand, by indicting as well the very resource speakers who gave the Senate basic information to build a case, that police general is also sending a stern message to future truth-tellers: squeal on the powerful and we’ll jail you.

He did not bother to wait for the issuance of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee findings on the scam it had unearthed and investigated. Instead he beat it to the Ombudsman, breaking a commitment to the senators to closely coordinate the filing of appropriate charges. It was Sen. Panfilo Lacson who exposed the chopper scam in a privilege speech last June. Before that, the head investigator knew nothing, or at least was silent, about it.

That head investigator is Director Samuel Pagdilao, commander of the Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigtion and Detection Group.

Remember his name well. Pagdilao may yet unmake this case against the perpetrators of the P105-million sale of Arroyo’s two used civilian helicopters as brand new to the PNP. If he is doing this deliberately, he too should be charged as another principal conspirator, for obstructing justice and for incompetence. During the four hearings, present and past Senate Presidents Juan Ponce Enrile and Franklin Drilon had noted a conspiracy among PNP generals and colonels to conceal the scam and mislead the investigating senators.

Pagdilao charged last Thursday at least 27 of his PNP senior officers, peers and subordinates. Led by former PNP director general Jesus Verzosa, the 27 were involved in the 2009 requisition, negotiated purchase, inspection, test flight, acceptance, certification, and payment of the used aircraft as brand new.

As if in a stage play, most of the accused said they were glad to finally be charged. Supposedly this meant that they optimistically could now clear their names. They had been given the chance to do so at the Senate. But senators noticed them to be feigning ignorance of and even admitting stupidity in procurement rules and procedures. Like, the generals in charge of requisition and research illegally had changed the specs to fit Arroyo’s second-hand choppers. Another, in charge of inspection and acceptance, kept saying in self-defense that he was unqualified to do so. PNP colonel-pilots had been flying the First Family in the choppers from 2004 to 2009, and so knew these were old, but had kept quiet when the PNP was supposed to be buying brand new units.

Included in Pagdilao’s complaint before the Ombudsman was Mike Arroyo, first gentleman when the scam was pulled off less than a year before President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s term ended. Also, political associate Ronaldo Puno, then-interior secretary and head of the National Police Commission who approved the fraudulent helicopter requisition, specifications, purchase, and payment.

Arroyo has said that Pagdilao violated his basic rights by not even taking his statement. Arroyo may have a legal point. Could it all have been pre-arranged?

Also charged were LionAir helicopter distributor Archibald Po, corporate executive Renato Sia, and PNP supplier Larry de Vera.

Po and Sia, along with LionAir associates Edith Soliano-Juguan and Domingo Lazo, and two pilots, had supplied the Senate with documents and details proving Arroyo’s ownership of the two Robinson Raven R-44 helicopters since 2004. It was de Vera who, from his own testimony at the Senate inquiry, knowingly passed off Arroyo’s five-year old choppers as brand new yet priced higher than the distributor’s (LionAir) listed price.

Notably, the Senate Blue-Ribbon Committee had granted Po, Sia, and de Vera immunity from criminal suit arising from their testimomies. The same is to be granted to Soliano-Juguan, Lazo, and the pilots.

Prosecution agencies like the Ombudsman and the Department of Justice usually follow Senate grants of immunity, since these already have been studied not only by lawyer-legislators but also their legal advisers. The legal consultant of the Blue Ribbon body is Jovencito Zuno, recently retired DOJ chief state prosecutor. Well into the fifth hearing, Zuno was saying he would not recommend plunder but only graft charges. Atty. Noel Malaya, who advises Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada, also did not see plunder. A heinous crime like murder, kidnapping and rape, plunder consists of stealing at least P50 million in state funds through a series or combination of crimes.

Plunder indictees often get away with it because of overkill or under-researched charges, at times deliberately so.

Pagdilao could not explain why he chose to file plunder raps. For, strangely during his press conference Thursday to announce his filing of charges, he refused to give out copies to reporters. He also did not say why he was pre-empting the senators.

Pagdilao also could not say why he was indicting the immunity grantees Po, Sia, and de Vera.

On the other hand, Pagdilao noticeably did not include from the charge sheet other persons who appear to have attempted to mislead the Senate inquiry. These are:

• Rep. Ignacio Arroyo, brother of Mike, who while malingering abroad had his lawyer distribute to the press an apparently bogus 2004 lease of five helicopters from Po’s LionAir, to mask Mike’s purchase of five units. He detailed in the “lease” the Robinson manufacturer’s serial numbers and the Air Transport Office license numbers of the five aircraft, attaching the Customs import dates and ATO registration dates. These papers showed, however, that at the start of the “lease” in March 2004, the choppers had yet to arrive in crates in Manila, be assembled and test-flown, and be registered with with civil aviation authorities.

• Rowena M. del Rosario, Mike’s personal bookkeeper, who claimed that her boss all these years but whose birthday and other basic personal circumstances she knew not, was Ignacio. She stuck to Ignacio’s false claim that the choppers were leased and not purchased from LionAir. It became absurd to the senators when she admitted having made a $500,000-down payment to Robinson Helicopter Company in December 2003, but insisted it was an advance for the “lease” that had yet to be signed by Ignacio in March 2004. Robinson only makes and does not lease out aircraft.

• Atty. Lope M. Velasco, who notarized the bogus “lease”. The notarization happened a full month before the date stated in Sia’s identifying cedula. The Pasay City treasurer’s office certified that the cedula never came from them. Velasco admitted that, contrary to notarizing rules and the wording of his acknowledgment, Ignacio and Sia never appeared before him to identify themselves and sign the lease.

Exempted as well from Pagdilao’s charge sheet were the PNP auditors who cleared the deal in 2009. They are still posted to the PNP as if they have a “memorandum order” for it. Ponce-Enrile had noted that the scam would not have been pulled without the collusion of the civilian officials tasked to review the generals’ actions.

Lacson refrained from showing displeasure with Pagdilao’s pre-emption of the Senate committee report. A former PNP chief himself, Lacson issued a formal statement: “The PNP may have filed complaints for plunder and other related violations of law with the Ombudsman in connection with the anomalous purchase of second-hand helicopters but it does not prevent the Senate from filing a different set of charges/criminal complaints based on our own evaluation of evidence gathered during the Blue Ribbon Committee hearings. We may likewise opt to include more individuals like Iggy Arroyo, Atty. Lope Velasco and Rowena del Rosario, at least for perjury and/or falsification of public and private documents. Lastly, we may also consider to amend the charges against Mike Arroyo, et al, if we see it fit to file the more appropriate criminal charges in order to ensure their conviction.”

Lacson earlier said that charges against Rep. Gloria Arroyo are possible for her failure to declare the choppers in her sworn annual statements of assets, liabilities and net worths, an offense that merits half a year in prison for past crises. Conviction can mean two years’ imprisonment.

Present PNP chief Raul Bacalzo had ordered Pagdilao to investigate the chopper scam after Lacson exposed it in a privilege speech. Before that, Pagdilao was clueless or wordless about it.

Aside from Lacson, the senators who researched the chopper scam before conducting the inquiry were Blue Ribbon chairman Teofisto Guingona III, Sergio Osmeña III, Drilon, and Estrada.

Participating in the hearings were: Ponce-Enrile, Antonio Trillanes IV, Tito Sotto, Francis Escudero, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Ralph Recto.

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