By John Constantine G/Manila Times

The Office of the Ombudsman closed the bail hearing related to the 660mn pesos plunder case of former president and now Rep Gloria Arroyo of Pampanga province, with its presentation of voluminous records submitted to the Sandiganbayan.

In a 101-page formal offer of exhibit, state lawyers outlined the board resolutions, checks, disbursement vouchers and letter-requests, which were separately attached to the formal offer. Included in the body of evidence of the Ombudsman is a flowchart prepared by the fiscals’ sole witness lawyer Aleta Tolentino, incumbent board member of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO.

The flowchart showed how the former board of directors of the lottery agency were able to transfer multi-million cash to the intelligence fund, which was insulated from auditing. The evidence showed that as per PCSO Charter, the confidential fund will be allocated with 15% of the operating fund of the agency’s net receipts.“The PCSO operating fund for 2008 to 2010 has no budget for intelligence funding,” the formal offer read. It added that the intelligence fund requested between those three years by former PCSO general manager Rosario Uriarte and chairman Sergio Valencia “were in excess of the PCSO’s corporate operating budget.”

Tolentino said that Arroyo approved the requests for additional intelligence fund, which lacked detailed explanation of the specific purposes.

The board then confirmed the approval, which, according to the Ombudsman, showed the participation of the board members in the plunder case.

Uriarte and Valencia were then able to withdraw cash without due appointment as special disbursing officers. Uriarte was only made a disbursing officer later on, the Ombudsman said. Tolentino implicated former Commission on Audit chairman Reynaldo Villar and unit head Nilda Plaras for failing to audit the cash advances “despite patent illegality,” the offer read. Credit notices were also issued even when the disbursement vouchers covering the cash advancements violated internal control, the prosecution said.

In a separate motion, Uriarte said that the case against her must be dropped since the case is weak.

She said that a former panel of investigators headed by deputy special prosecutor Cornelio Somido ruled that the plunder allegation could not stand, which they recommended to Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales.

Morales did not sign the recommendation and instead went ahead to order the filing of plunder charges. After questioning from the bench, Associate Justice Rodolfo Ponferrada was able to elicit from Tolentino answers which showed that the current lottery board did not do anything with her review of the transaction.

 

Court nod to examine bank records

By Jomar Canlas/Manila Times

 

 

The Court of Appeals has authorised  the Anti-Money Laundering Council  (AMLC) to examine the bank accounts of a Filipina whose husband was alleged to have violated British anti-money laundering laws.

In a six-page resolution penned by Associate Justice Amy Lazaro-Javier, the Court’s Special Former First Division granted the ex-parte application for bank inquiry in favour of AMLC as it allowed it to inquire into or examine the bank accounts under the name of Ruth Ramos Ochavez in Philippine Savings Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and Citibank that were earlier frozen by the court.

The bank accounts in Citibank and Philippine National Bank under the name of Grace Ochavez Adrejilo, Ruth’s sister, were also ordered to be examined.

These accounts are being maintained by Grace who declared that her source of income were remittances from her sister (Ruth) in London.

“This court finds probable case that the bank accounts in the names of (Ruth and Grace) are related to, or involved in unlawful activities or money laundering offence under Sections 3 and 4 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act,” the Court said.

The Department of Justice forwarded to the AMLC a request for assistance by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) of the government of the United Kingdom routed through the UK Judicial Cooperation Unit on August 11, 2011. This is regarding the case of Achilleas Kallakis, a k a Stefanos Kollakis, Alexander Lewis, a k a Martin Lewis and Michael Karl Helmut Mauritius Becker who are being investigated for alleged violations of British criminal laws.