JEDDAH, 05 September 2003 — More than two weeks after Sen. Panfilo Lacson gave his first privilege speech in the Senate detailing the 260 million pesos in funds allegedly held by the first gentleman Mike Arroyo in secret bank accounts under the fictitious name of “Jose Pidal,” the Arroyo administration has been using a never-ending string of spins and threats to try and get the allegations to go away.
It’s latest and most desperate attempt to try and spin the problems further away from President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was to triumphantly present last Monday at a Makati news conference Ignacio Arroyo, Mike’s brother, as allegedly being the real “Jose Pidal.” The whole thing smacked of a highly stage-managed show, with projected graphics on the wall behind Ignacio Arroyo flashing the slogan: “Jose Pidal, Revealed.” Was this the launch of a new movie or what?! It looked so slick and so carefully prepared as to seem almost fake.
Ignacio admitted to having opened the Pidal accounts in the 1990s, when it was still legal to open bank accounts in the Philippines using fictitious names. Ignacio claimed he did this to protect himself against possible kidnapping from criminal syndicates that regularly prey on rich businessmen. He also claimed that he closed all of the Pidal accounts (conveniently one must note) just one day before the Anti-Money Laundering Act came into effect.
I think that Ignacio has possibly been put forward by his brother, the first gentleman, to be the sacrificial lamb or the fall guy. The president’s handlers must have been desperate to get the accusations of harboring undeclared wealth away from the first gentleman and the president.
If this money is really Ignacio’s, why has he declared that if Lacson can find any money in the enumerated accounts he will donate it to the Senate’s employees? Since when are rich businessmen in the habit of donating millions of pesos to complete strangers? Not many, I suspect, except if you’re feeling really guilty and want to somehow make that suspicion surrounding yourself disappear as fast as possible.
And on the subject of just how rich Ignacio really is, some observers have pointed out that he can’t be that rich if he allegedly only paid 13,000 pesos in his last income tax return.
After forcibly kidnapping Lacson’s star witness last week, Eugenio “Udong” Mahusay Jr., who, as you will recall, said he personally deposited checks signed “Jose Pidal” by the first gentleman, the Arroyo administration and its senators are now hiding behind the Bank Secrecy Law and the Anti-Money Laundering Act when asked why they don’t order the various banks having Pidal accounts to produce their records and reveal who the real owner of these accounts is. Then there is the allegation that some of these Pidal accounts are also co-held in the name of Victoria Toh and her husband Thomas Toh. The opposition press has long held that the first gentleman has been having an illicit affair with Vicky Toh, who is his personal accountant. The fevered gossipy stories about the first gentleman allegedly taking Vicky on the presidential yacht, sans the president, and of him supposedly whisking her away on private helicopters to romantic hideaways, have forced presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye to admit that the president has asked her husband for an explanation. Don’t expect a palace press conference on that one, though it does seem to be turning out to be an affair “a la Monica Lewinsky.”
President Arroyo announced in Brunei on Wednesday that she was trying to heal the nation and stop the divisiveness that is currently splitting the nation asunder. Allowing a thorough and transparent investigation of Lacson’s accusations by the Senate would be a first step at being fair and balanced. If you have nothing to hide, why not let the wheels of justice grind ahead?
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