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Wednesday, March 15, 2006
5 legislators call government witness a 'liar'
MANILA -- The five congressmen who are facing rebellion charges dismissed Tuesday as "mere lies" the testimony last Monday of a government witness linking them to a plot to topple the Arroyo government.
Representative Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna said the claims of the witness that they were part of a so-called leftist-rightist conspiracy plotting President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's ouster were "absolute lies".
Ocampo and the other four congressmen--Bayan Muna party-list Representatives Teodoro Casiño and Joel Virador, Gabriela party-list Representative Liza Maza, and Anakpawis party-list Representative Rafael Mariano-- vowed they would hurdle the charges against them and get back at their detractors.
Casiño said there was an apparent move to link them to "Oplan Hackle" and "Oplan Final Talk," supposedly the "grand plot" to oust President Arroyo and establish a transitional revolutionary government.
This was reportedly hatched by rightist military elements and communist leaders, including the five congressmen.
But Casiño said the accusations against them are "ridiculous" and vowed that they will soon prove these wrong. "We are prepared for this," he added.
The justice department presented Monday a self-confessed communist named Jaime Beltran Fuentes who claimed he could prove that Beltran and the five activist lawmakers met several times to discuss the overthrow of the government.
Ocampo denied the claim made by Fuentes and also said the witness is not a security officer of Bayan Muna executive director Victor Ladlad.
He said Ladlad has no security officer, even as he added that the sworn affidavit of the witness contained only "fabricated lies."
Ocampo said among the allegations of the witness that is not true is the statement that "we met at the Glorietta (in Makati City)" after the February 24 rally at Ayala.
He also denied Fuentes's claims that he saw them during the 10th plenum of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army (CPP-NPA) sometime in November 2005.
"If indeed he is a security officer, he would not be able to know details of the alleged meeting from a secretive organization as this," Ocampo said.
Ocampo and his colleagues expressed belief that the charges filed against them would not hold water because of the lack of probable cause.
"If this is going to be fair and truthful, we can see outright that they (justice department) would conclude that's there's no case of rebellion against us," he said.
Mariano, for his part, warned Fuentes to be wary of his handlers.
"Fuentes's testimonies are so patently contrived that we are eager to submit our counter-affidavits so we can start demolishing them," Mariano said. The Anakpawis legislator said he is afraid for the safety of the witness and his family.
On Tuesday, a gay beautician named Ruel Escala sent his signed affidavit to House reporters claiming he saw the five leftist legislators attend a meeting with First Lieutenant Lawrence San Juan and several unidentified persons in a remote barangay in Padre Garcia, Batangas. San Juan, a member of the so-called "Magdalo Group" that took over the Oakwood Towers in Makati in July 2003, was then a fugitive. He has since been recaptured.
Escala, 32, said he saw the group while "looking for a friend" in the area, bolstering the claims of the military and the police on the supposed meeting between the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan-Makabayang Kawal Pilipino, supposedly a rightist military group to which San Juan belongs.
Describing the two "witnesses" as part of the justice department's "theatrics," Casiño said their testimonies were an assortment of raw intelligence reports that were "sprinkled with names of actual persons and office addresses."
Casiño said his group will also submit House records to prove that they never left Congress on February 20. Maza assailed the police for using a gay manicurist to play star witness against them. It was condemnable, according to the lawmaker, that the DOJ would choose a gay person to act out a lie to pin them down.
"This is actually demeaning to the gay community," Maza said, adding that she is not surprised that the Arroyo regime, in its desperation, would resort to manufacturing evidence against them.
Meanwhile, Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iniguez, chairman of the Commission on Public Affairs of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), said the justice department should make sure they are strictly following judicial processes in investigating the five lawmakers "otherwise this will be a black eye on the government."
"It must be an objective investigation," Iniguez said.
He added that the bishops are closely monitoring the investigation in order to determine if there are truths to allegations of a coup plot, which was used by President Arroyo as ground to issue Proclamation 1017 that placed the country under a state of emergency.
Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles, in a separate interview, said those behind the coup plot should be established. "There was really a coup plot. Who were behind it is not easy to establish," Arguelles said. (DBP/MSN/Sunnex)
(March 15, 2006 issue)
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