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Friday, September 16, 2005
Senator to summon 3 officials tagged in spy case
MANILA -- Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago said she will subpoena the three unnamed "national-level public officials" implicated in the espionage cases filed against two Filipinos in the US once they are identified.
"The three national officials are scheduled to be named in a US court on September 22. The moment their identities are revealed, I will immediately subpoena them for a public hearing the next day, September 23," said Santiago, who heads the Senate foreign relations committee.
The Senate is currently on a break but will resume session on September 19.
Former national police deputy director Michael Ray Aquino and Filipino-American Leandro Aragoncillo were earlier arrested by US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents for alleged espionage.
Aragoncillo, an FBI analyst, allegedly downloaded confidential information in the FBI files about the Philippines and sent this to Aquino who reportedly passed this on to three Filipino officials.
Santiago filed a "resolution directing the committee on foreign affairs and the committee on national defense to criminalize conduct seriously prejudicial to Philippine foreign relations, whether bilateral or multilateral, committed by unauthorized Filipino nationals."
She said she will make it a point that when Senate resumes session next week, her resolution will undergo first reading, during which it will be formally assigned to two committees, one chaired by herself and the other by Senator Rodolfo Biazon.
"After first reading on Monday, I can set hearing immediately for Friday and the three national officials can be expected to testify by then," Santiago said.
According to the affidavit of US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent Edward Finnegan, one of the three national officials is a presidential contender, based on an email from Aragoncillo's mail stating: "I would rather you take over--if the Constitution would suggest, rather than them."
Santiago also said according to Finnegan's affidavit, the national officials have apparently undergone espionage training, based on the official's email to Aragoncillo stating: "If there are confidential matters that you wish to share, don't hesitate because I was fully trained in this endeavor. I was the one who established the..."
Santiago's resolution states that the involvement of at least three Philippine nationals, two of whom are alleged to be incumbent national officials, "raises grave concern about the impact of such allegations on RP-US diplomatic relations."
The senator argued that the Philippine Penal Code should criminalize conduct by unauthorized Filipinos who conduct espionage in a foreign state, or who conspire in such espionage.
At present, the Penal Code criminalizes crimes against national security, including treason, espionage, and correspondence with a hostile country which are punished with penalties ranging from imprisonment to death.
"Espionage in another state by unauthorized Filipinos should be criminalized, because such conduct might seriously jeopardize Philippine foreign relations with another state or states and would be tantamount to a crime against national security," Santiago said.
Heavier penalties should be imposed if the perpetrators are public officials, because in effect such officials would be guilty of sabotage of official Philippine foreign policy, Santiago added.
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said the Department of Justice (DOJ) should identify the three politicians who were tagged by the US FBI as being in cahoots with Aquino in the alleged espionage case.
"The first thing that (DOJ) Secretary Raul Gonzales should do is to inform the people of the names of the politicians. It's not good for the DOJ just to say there are opposition politicians involved here and keep the thing hanging up in the air. I think the DOJ owes it to the people to let them know who are these people so that these politicians, if they violated the laws of this country specifically, then they should be penalized. I do not believe that simply because they are politicians they are above the law, nobody is above the law," Pimentel said.
He lashed out at Gonzales for offering to extradite the three unnamed politicians tagged by FBI in the espionage case. "They should rethink that stupid suggestion. There is no request yet from the US. Offering to extradite is premature," Pimentel said.
Gonzalez earlier said US attaché Jeff Cole shared with him confidential notes on the Aquino case.
Pimentel said Aquino also got in touch with him through e-mail some weeks back but the message contained only a request for the senator to furnish him the address of former election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano in New Jersey.
He had revealed a few weeks back that Garcillano is hiding in New Jersey in the US.
In another e-mail letter, Pimentel said Aquino poured out his frustrations over the difficulties in fixing his passport and legal documents in the US.
The senator said he did not receive any classified information from Aquino.
Aside from the two e-mails, Pimentel said he also received voluminous information from Aquino but he was unable to open it because it was sent to his cell phone.
Pimentel said he made the disclosure in anticipation that some quarters might name him as one of the three Filipino national-level public officials implicated in the espionage cases filed against Aquino and Aragoncillo in the US district court in New Jersey.
"Now that this thing about Michael Ray Aquino's involvement in the alleged violation of US laws have come about, I wouldn't be surprised if they'll be trying to implicate me here," Pimentel said.
He said he was never close to Aquino and that he knew him only as the aide of Senator Panfilo Lacson and a son-in-law of his friend from Mindanao.
Pimentel recalled that in 2001, Aquino asked his assistance to be placed under the Senate custody when he was being pursued by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) for the Dacer-Corbito double murder case but Pimentel said nothing came out of it.
Asked how Aquino came to know about his e-mail address, Pimentel said his e-mail address could easily be accessed via the Internet.
Pimentel said the NBI and the DOJ are just making a big issue of the espionage case to discredit the opposition.
"I think this is an attempt to muddle up the issue of Gloria's wrongdoing and shift the focus of attention to the members of opposition. Incidentally, in one of the emails Michael Ray Aquino sent to me, he complained about the harassment that he was undergoing in the US. He's having a hard time fixing his passport," Pimentel said.
He also said there is no point on how the classified information seized from Aquino and Aragoncillo could jeopardize the security of the US.
"If the information, for example, that is shared with other people concerns Filipino politicians, what is that to the US? Unless of course the information has some inputs from Americans maybe, I really don't have information on that. Therefore, this is just a big to do about nothing actually," Pimentel said. (JPM/Sunnex)
(September 16, 2005 issue)
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