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After Erap pardon
Militants fear Palace will let deposed President
keep his P 876 million ill-acquired wealth

Rabid critics of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Tuesday expressed fear that Malacañang will soon let pardoned former President Joseph Estrada to keep his ill-acquired wealth estimated at P 876 million to further neutralize the camp of ousted President Estrada and divide further the broad anti-Arroyo camp.

“Mrs. Arroyo champions the act of political accommodation in the name of her political survival. The sum of all our fears is that after granting pardon to Mr. Estrada, she might go further to the extent of stopping the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court from going after Estrada’s hundreds of millions of ill-gotten fortune,” the left-leaning fisherfolk alliance Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) said in a press statement.

Pamalakaya national chair Fernando Hicap was referring to P 545.291 million in “jueteng payoffs” with interest, including the P 200 million deposited in the bank account of the Erap Muslim Youth Foundation, the P 189 million in commission from the purchase of Bell Corp. share and the P 142 million “Boracay Mansion” in New Manila, Quezon City, which the anti-graft court decided that should be returned to national coffers when it convicted the former President for acts of plunder last Sept. 12.

“What if President Arroyo tells the Sandiganbayan court to stop chasing Estrada’s ill-acquired wealth in the name of that bogus national reconciliation program of her government? Will the Sandiganbayan court follow their principal in Malacañang? Whether Malacañang admit it or not, the next step to seal the GMA- Erap peace pact is the immoral immunity of Erap wealth from government confiscation,” the Pamalakaya leader said.

“This is a possibility,” Hicap said referring the situation where the government will no longer pursue the ill-acquired assets of Estrada. “ Gloria does not want her assets to be the object of people’s confiscation in the near future, and the Estrada case is a good precedent to set her own walk-in-the park escape on or before or even after 2010,” Pamalakaya’s Hicap stressed.

Sandiganbayan acting spokesperson and executive clerk court Renato Bocar yesterday said the anti-graft court can go after the personal assets of deposed President Estrada if it fails to find his illegally amassed wealth, estimated at P 876 million, should the ousted leader refuse to give up the money and property specified in the Sept. 12 decision.

Of the listed items, Bocar said, only the P 200 million deposited in the Equitable-PCI bank account of the Erap Muslim Youth Foundation remained intact. The rest of the money have yet to be found. The Sandiganbayan is set to enforce the writ of execution today of confiscation of on the money and property in favor of the government.

Estrada said the government can have the money deposited in Equitable-PCI bank account, but they cannot touch his rest house in Tanay, Rizal and mansion on Polk Street in Greenhills, San Juan because these are hard-earned assets.

“President Arroyo is exploiting Mr. Estrada, using the former President as political figure that would help her administration divert the cycle of scandals of corruption and politically motivated crimes hounding the presidency, which involves the highest office of the land, the presidential husband and close associates of Mr. and Mrs. Arroyo,” Pamalakaya said. #

posted by: GerryCorpuz at 01:19 | link | comments |

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