Plunder at Immigration: P1,000 no longer missing

Is evidence being tampered in the P50-million bribery of two Immigration deputies?

Cash is the proof – P50 million in P1000-notes. It’s the minimum amount for heinous, non-bailable plunder. Controversy raged when only P49,999,000 initially was counted. Expect another to-do, as the missing P1,000 has turned up in recent re-inventory.

Associate commissioners Al Argosino and Michael Robles allegedly received the money on the night of Nov. 26-27, 2016. “Payoff” was at a casino in Entertainment City, Parañaque. Supposedly it was to facilitate the release of 1,613 Chinese illegal workers earlier arrested at Macao magnate Jack Lam’s gaming pit in Clark Freeport, Pampanga. The two officials are charged with plunder, gift taking, graft, and bribery. Co-accused is their purported go-between, retired police colonel Wally Sombero, who asserts that he in fact was entrapping them for extortion. Of the loot, P18 million went to Immigration intelligence chief Charles Calima, who turned it over to the National Police. Given to Sombero was P2 million, for legal reps of the illegal aliens.

On Dec. 13, 2016, then-justice secretary Vitaliano Aguirre faced the press with law fraternity-mates Argosino and Robles. They announced the charging with corruption of Lam, two interpreters, and Calima. Purportedly the P30 million yielded by Argosino and Robles was only P29,999,000. So total, with the P20 million given to Calima and Sombero, was P49,999,000. Impliedly there was no plunder, as the evidence was P1,000 short of the threshold. Investigating senators fumed. The case still should be for plunder, they said, since P50 million was the bribe demanded and believed delivered. Taking that stance, the Ombudsman indicted Argosino, Robles, and Sombero, but exonerated Calima.

The next day, Dec. 14, 2016, the P29,999,000 was placed in a safety deposit box at a Land Bank branch in Manila. Certified were 30 packets of P1 million each. Each packet consisted of ten bundles of P100,000, except for the last, duly marked as P99,000. Two keys were given to two Aguirre trustees, an undersecretary and a director.

Aug. 8, 2018, as part of bail hearings, the Sandiganbayan set a re-inventory of evidence. Watching the bill counting were the magistrates, Ombudsman and justice department prosecutors, and defense counsels. The bundle labeled P99,000 turned out not missing any P1000-bill; the total was P100,000. The amount is back to P30 million.

Who touched the evidence and why? Logbooks identify a visitor to the safety deposit box on June 22, 2018 – staying for 11 minutes. The name is known to those present in the recount of Aug. 8.

To recall, Aguirre was replaced last Apr. 2018 by Justice Sec. Menardo Guevarra. The latter made all Aguirre’s appointee under- and assistant secretaries resign. They were replaced by July.

Who authorized the visit to the safety deposit? Did the visitor have superiors’ written consent? Was he alone? Why were defense counsels and prosecutors not informed? The Sandigan 6th Division will rule on the evidence fiddling. Justice Sarah Jane Fernandez is chairwoman; Justices Karl Miranda and Zaldy Trespeses are members.

Immigration chief Jaime Morente and Calima testified the past two weeks in bail petitions. Morente swore that, on Sombero’s tip of ongoing extortion, they devised a bust in Nov.-Dec. 2016. Calima said Sombero was his informant in building a plunder case against Argosino and Robles.

Sombero, a decorated detective, maintains he did not take part in the crime but blew the whistle. Jailed for five months now with the two co-accused, he cries, “I don’t belong here.” He was never impleaded nor preliminarily investigated for plunder, his counsel says.

*      *      *

The three lawyers had every reason to be at last week’s police search for drugs at Time Bar in Makati. The owner must be present or told. He has constitutional right to counsel, which is what Attorneys Jan Vincent Soliven, Lenie Rocha, and Romulo Alarkon are.

The searchers arrested the three for intimidation and obstructing justice. But as various lawyers’ groups protest, how can three civilians with only cell phone cameras intimidate armed cops? Videoing the search is not obstruction but part of the justice process. Legal experts denounce PNP director general Oscar Albayalde for belittling lawyers’ protection of clients’ rights.

In Jan. 2017, while looking into narcs’ abuses, Sen. Ping Lacson showed CCTV footages that alerted citizens. Caught on video were raiders pretending to search an office but slipping shabu (meth) into desk drawers and mauling employees. They looted P7 million in goods, and asked the employer for P2 million more. Albayalde, then Metro Manila head, acknowledged they were his men but did not identify the station. Like the recent Makati bar raiders, they were in civvies, so had no name plates.

An ex-PNP chief, Lacson said the evidence planting was no isolated incident. At least 12 other cases were cited of cops victimizing mostly Chinese. Detailed was the abduction of a man from his house by eight cops who demanded P3-million ransom. Upon payment the man was brought in for inquest. Another man was arrested and his family made to cough up P500,000. When only P200,000 was paid, the cops charged him with drug possession and jailed him.

*      *      *

President Duterte’s word war with self-exiled communist leader Joma Sison will get nowhere. If he thinks Sison is a “discredited rebel,” then why dignify him with repartees? Make Mocha useful and let her respond to Sison.

*      *      *

Authorities should stop blaming soaring rice retail prices on unabated smuggling. It doesn’t wash. If there’s massive smuggling, we should be awash in cheap rice, right?

*      *      *

Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

Gotcha archives on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jarius-Bondoc/1376602159218459, or The STAR website https://beta.philstar.com/columns/134276/gotcha