Friday, August 22, 2008 CA extends freeze order on Bolante’s accounts
THE Court of Appeals (CA) has extended the freeze order on 32 of the 70 bank accounts of former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn "Joc-Joc" Bolante, giving the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) fresh four months to locate the missing P728 million fertilizer fund.
Bolante, believed to be the architect of the fund scam, left the country at the height of the Senate’s investigation into the alleged anomaly but he was arrested and detained in Los Angeles on July 7, 2006 after airport authorities found him in possession of a revoked US visa.
His visa was revoked after he was tagged by the Senate as the mastermind of the scam. A petition for political asylum which he filed in the US has recently been denied by an immigration court for lack of merit.
In a resolution penned by CA Associate Justice Pampio Abarintos, the CA Former First Division granted the ex-parte petition of the AMLC to extend the freeze order, which lapsed last August 20. The extension will give the council until December 20 to complete its investigation.
Concurring with the ruling were CA Presiding Justice Conrado Vasquez Jr. and Justice Lucas Bersamin.
The appellate court removed from the coverage of the freeze order more than 30 other accounts in various banks and institutions after it was learned that these accounts have already been “canceled, written off, closed, or expired.”
The extended freeze order now covers accounts and insurance policies at Banco de Oro-Universal Bank, Citbank, N.A., East-West Bank, Maybank Phils., Inc, Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co., Philippine National Bank, Insular Life Assce. Company, Pru Life Insurance Corp. of the UK, Manufacturers Life Ins. Co., BPI/MS Insurance Corp., Performance Foreign Exchange Corp., Prudential Bank, Bank of the Philippine Islands, Union Bank of the Philippines, Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation, and Standard Chartered Bank.
The CA said it found no compelling reason to lift or modify the subject freeze order, as "those accounts the funds and sources of which originated from and/or are materially linked to the monetary instruments or properties subject of the freeze orders.”
The AMLC had asked the CA to extend the freeze order to allow it to conduct and conclude an exhaustive and comprehensive financial investigation of the said accounts to determine the extent of criminal activity of the persons involved without possible dissipation of funds in said accounts.
Last July 1, the CA originally issued a 20-day freeze order on 70 accounts under the name of Bolante and several other individuals and entities believed to be involved in the fertilizer scam after finding probable cause that unlawful activities have been committed by the respondents to funnel the funds intended for farmers.
The freeze order was later extended up to August 19, 2008.
Aside from Bolante, the AMLC identified the other holders of these various accounts as Molugan Foundation, Alliance for the Conservation of the Environment of Pangasinan, Inc., Sta. Lucia Education Association of Bulacan, Inc., Livelihood Corporation (Livecor), Ariel C. Panganiban, and spouses Samuel and Katherine Bombeo.
Based on the initial investigation conducted by the Secretariat’s Compliance and Investigation Staff of the AMLC, Livecor transferred in 2004 huge sums of money to the accounts of Molugan on four separate occasions in the total amount of P172.6 million and the Assembly of Gracious Samaritans Foundation, Inc. (AGS) in the amount of P40 million.
Molugan then transferred P38 million to AGS on April 2004 with AGS returning the favor by transferring the same amount to Molugan on exactly the same day.
The report said the transactions “have no underlying legal or trade obligation, purpose or economic justification.”
It added that the transactions do not commensurate with the business capacity of Molugan and AGS, since they were lowly capitalized at only P50,000 each.
At the time of the transactions, Bolante was the acting chairman of Livecor while Samuel Bombeo was the president, secretary, treasurer and the sole signatory for the checking account of Molugan. Samuel and Panganiban were the signatories for the account of AGS.
The appellate court did not give credence on the claim of Bolante and Livecor that the former agriculture official was not the chairman of the board of Livecor and that he ceased to be a member of the board of Livecor effective February 1, 2003 or more than 14 months prior to the initial transaction in question of Livecor.
The CA said the claim was contradicted by the result of the investigation conducted by the Secretariat’s Compliance and Investigation Staff of the AMLC.
“The contention that the accounts of Livecor and Jocelyn Bolante cannot be covered by the freeze order because there is no connection with the bank accounts of respondent Bolante to either funds of Livecor or the fertilizer fund of the Department of Agriculture and that there is no probable cause because the bank accounts of Bolante are not related to unlawful activity deserves scant consideration, as the same can be clearly considered a related web of account within the purview of the law,” the CA said. (ECV/Sunnex)
