Rep. Roilo Golez (Ind., Parañaque) earlier said that Bolante has no right to apply for a political asylum in the US because what he is facing is more of a deportation than an extradition case.
"How can someone considered to be one of the closest political allies of the powers-that-be in the Philippines apply for political asylum? That’s only if he faces persecution for political reasons. In my opinion, he is not a victim of political persecution but a beneficiary of political protection here," he said.
The latest: Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez criticized for inaction on Joc Joc gate.
All indications point to the Ombudsman, envisioned as an independent and constitutional anti-graft office, getting all its directions and orders from Malacañang, as it continued to sit on the Senate’s recommendation for the Ombudsman to charge former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc-Joc” Bolante and his other associates in the P3-billion fertilizer funds scam for the crime of plunder.
A frustrated Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr., chairman of the Senate panel that turned over its results of the fertilizer anomaly results to the anti-graft agency for action, yesterday scored Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, said to be part of the inner presidential circle, with a presidential mandate for her to protect the presidential kith, kin and cronies from any and all charges leveled against them, for her inaction on ensuring that the embattled Bolante is extradited to the country.
Jokjok!
From the Malaya Editorial: Joc Joc’s asylum bid
Joc Joc Bolante, Mike Arroyo’s erstwhile man at the Department of Agriculture, is seeking asylum in the United States. What the hell is going on?
The Senate committee on agriculture and the blue ribbon have recommended that Bolante be charged with plunder for using P700 million in fertilizer funds to buy the support of local officials for Gloria Arroyo in the 2004 elections. The Senate has also issued a warrant for his arrest for repeatedly failing to attend hearings on the fertilizer fund.
There is, however, no danger of his ending up in the slammer soon. The Office of the Ombudsman, headed by Mike’s Ateneo law classmate Merceditas Gutierrez, is sleeping the sleep of the dead on the Senate recommendation. Bolante used to breeze through the international airport gates without the Senate warrant servers seeing just even his shadow. Airport authorities certainly can extend the same accommodation.
If Bolante is being politically persecuted, then Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez must be coddling Satur Ocampo in placing the latter in the hold-order list.
(rimshot) Ba-da-bing!
The editorial has more, this time w/ my favorite US ambassador Kristie Kenney getting a mention:
There are reports that immigration officials cancelled Bolante’s visa on the recommendation of the US Embassy in Manila. Curious, isn’t it? Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr., chairman of the Senate committee on agriculture, has been pestering US Ambassador Kristine Kienney on what action her government has taken on inquiries about Bolante’s presence in the United States.
Magsaysay has not received any answer, but Kienney apparently had been playing possum. Bolante is now in the hand of US authorities.
We have not a whit of understanding of how US immigration laws work. But if Bolante really wants to convince US authorities he’s dead meat upon exiting from the NAIA passenger tube, we have a suggestion.
Bolante should name those who ordered him to rob the treasury to buy votes for Gloria. It’s guaranteed. He would not only be facing political persecution here. He would be the target of execution.
Foolproof yung suggestion na yan, JOKJOK!
More details on who this Joc Joc Bolante is, from Ducky Paredes:
Joc Joc may only have been a Usec in the Department of Agriculture but the old-timers there will tell you that Bolante had more power than the agriculture secretaries under whom he served. For one thing, Bolante controlled the purse. No funds were released without Bolante’s say-so. He seldom even showed up at the Department. He did most of his work remote control – through text messages and phone calls to his people.
More here:
The US Embassy isn’t talking. The family doesn’t want public attention, invoking its right to privacy. Malacañang is – as usual – talking from both sides of the mouth.
What’s going on here, that is, former Undersecretary Jocelyn "Joc Joc" Bolante’s arrest by US immigration authorities last week upon setting foot on American soil?
Bolante was arrested in California reportedly on visa violations. It’s public knowledge that Bolante has been in and out of the United States. His lawyers during last year’s Senate investigation of the alleged use of P700 million in fertilizer funds to buy the election for Gloria Arroyo in 2004 said his regular presence was needed at the Rotary International headquarters in Illinois as the group’s treasurer (the claim was denied by Rotary International officials in official communications to Senate probers).
So there apparently was no problem with his US visa then. His trouble with US immigration clearly came up only recently.
It was unclear if his visa had been cancelled before he landed in California. Such violation usually leads to the illegal entrant’s being bundled off on the first flight out of the plane that brought him in. So why was Bolante taken into custody? Reports said his visa was cancelled at the time of arrival by immigration authorities who promptly sent him to jail while awaiting a hearing by an immigration judge. The reports added he declined – or was unable - to post $100,000 bail.
Something bigger than trying to illegally sneak into the United States is going on here and it could not have happened to a man more desperate than anyone else in seeking to avoid official attention for almost a year now.
Bolante has a standing warrant of arrest issued by the Senate for contempt. The Executive department has not lifted a finger to help implement the Senate’s order. On the contrary, the Executive has practically been aiding Bolante evade custody by rejecting a Senate request to have his passport cancelled so he could be forced to come home.
Ellen Tordesillas and MLQ3 comments on the Joc Joc case.
More from the Tribune:
Former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc-Joc” Bolante, who was arrested upon arrival at the Los Angeles Airport on July 7, may have brought in an undeclared amount of dollars in the tens of millions to the United States.
Reliable sources at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said it is probable that the initially claimed $100,000-$500,000 bail set for Bolante is 1 percent of the amount brought into the US or its equivalent.
It was Bolante’s son, Anthony, who went to the US, along with a lawyer, to ask for a bail reduction, but it is still unclear whether this will be granted by the court.
A news blackout at the DFA was reportedly imposed, following the Tribune report that the issues taken up during the meeting among high level DFA officials Thursday discussed the money laundering charges of which Bolante may have to explain, intimating that it is not just Bolante but more powerful Palace officials who are being linked to money laundering raps.
The Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) was just as tight-lipped on the issue of the probable money laundering issue that may be leveled against Bolante, who is known as one of the presidential couple’s bagmen.
It is usual, especially when money laundering allegations are leveled against President Arroyo’s known foes in the media, for the AMLC, as well as the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), to quickly state that the agency will be investigating these allegations, as it did when former beauty contestant Joelle Pelaez claimed she would be filing money laundering charges against deposed President Joseph Estrada.
This time however, both the AMLC and the NBI remain silent on the alleged money laundering issue directed at the supposed presidential bagman.
MORE: Raul Pangalanan writes:
FORMER undersecretary Jocelyn Bolante has snubbed five Senate hearings, casually flouting each Senate summons and at times flying out of the country days before the hearing. He skedaddles despite an immigration watch-list, a Senate contempt order, a Senate report and a plunder complaint filed before the Office of the Ombudsman implicating him as the “architect” in the diversion of agriculture funds into the election campaign war chest of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in May 2004.
All this, under a government that has proclaimed itself as a regime under the rule of law! All this, under a President who has called upon her soldiers to lay down their lives to uphold the Constitution and defend the rule of law.
Get this: Bolante has admitted to signing the papers releasing P728 million for fertilizers and pesticides for GMA, the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani program, and distributing them to congressmen and local politicians right in time for the presidential campaign. He has washed his hands, saying it was all “demand-driven,” and that he gave only to those who asked. And yet, Rep. Teodoro Locsin of Makati, the country’s financial district, says he never asked, never received, and yet was recorded to have gotten the fertilizer funding -- this, for Makati’s concrete jungle where only the flower pots in the Ayala Center have any use for the illicit dung.
And it takes the US Immigration and Naturalization Service finally to arrest Bolante -- two years after the scam was first exposed!
The Arroyo administration can hunt down coup plotters belonging to well-organized and richly funded (or so it claims) conspiracies. It can hound the enemies of the state, force their leaders to hole up in the Batasan complex of the House of Representatives, round up their followers in “sonas” historically rife with human rights abuses. But it couldn’t find Bolante.
Rep. Satur Ocampo of the Bayan Muna party-list group was hassled at the airport and almost missed his flight to an international human rights conference, all because of a hold-order issued merely by the executive department -- and boy, did the justice secretary publicly berate his immigration bureau chief for wimping out on the hold-order. Bolante was subject to a contempt order by the elected Senate, but was he ever asked at the airport why he was decamping in seeming haste?
.....
But this should be no surprise. This isn’t the first time this government will play possum and pass the buck to another legal system. We are a proud independent republic, except when it is politically inconvenient.
“Garci” disappeared for the good part of a year. He supposedly flew to Singapore from Manila. But it took Singaporean consular records to show that he landed in the city-state, while Manila’s immigration records show he never even left!
How about the former comptroller of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP)? It took US customs authorities to document his son’s undeclared $100,000 at a US airport and his wife’s sworn statement before them that this was merely “gratitude money from [AFP] contractors.” Yet back home, when the Money Laundering Council obtained a freeze on his bank accounts, Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia was able to make massive midnight withdrawals just before the courts stepped in. In the end, he was cleared of the watered-down charge of perjury, because either the Ombudsman or the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court was wanting in zeal or wit.
PDI Editorial: Bring Joc Joc back
Now Bolante is in the hands of the US government with whom the Philippine government has an extradition treaty. It should be much easier for the administration to bring him home and make him explain how he “supervised” the disbursement of the P728-million fertilizer fund. But Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez has said the Philippine government would ask for Bolante’s extradition since it is not the obligation of the executive department to enforce a warrant of arrest issued by the Senate. Apparently to Gonzalez, the Senate is no longer a part of the Philippine government. But by refusing to lift a finger to bring Bolante home, he has only confirmed the public perception that Bolante is special to the Arroyo administration.
A few weeks ago, President Arroyo announced that she was putting P1 billion more into the government’s war against graft and corruption. If she meant it as a signal of her renewed resolve to stamp out corruption in government, that resolve will be put to a test by Bolante’s arrest. She can move that campaign one big step forward by ordering the Department of Justice and the Department of Foreign Affairs to start the legal process that would bring Bolante back to explain where the P728 million went. But will she dare to hear what Bolante might reveal?
UPDATE: Eto pa, from the Tribune Editorial:
With all official and identifiable sources clamming up on the arrest, detention and hearing of former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc-Joc” Bolante, more speculations on this incident occurring in the United States Immigration have risen — all of which impact negatively on the Malacañang tenants.
When news first broke on the Bolante case, both the Palace and its Foreign Affairs department took the line that it was a canceled visa problem Bolante was facing. But that was when the speculation grew, since there were reports of his having been arrested and detained, plus a bail of $100,000 slapped on him last July 7, a Friday. Local media had the report on this on the 12th, which time lag is much too long, and suspicious. It is impossible for Malacañang not to have known of his arrest on the day Bolante was arrested, and just as impossible for the Department of Foreign Affairs officials not to have been informed by the LA office about the Bolante arrest. After all, Joc-Joc isn’t just an ordinary Pinoy stranded in the US and slapped with an arrest. Arroyo officials know just how close Bolante is with Gloria.
But Malacañang washed its hands off the Bolante arrest, saying he is no longer a government official, but also said, as a private citizen, that the consulate in Los Angeles would afford Bolante the assistance given to any Filipino citizen. On the matter of the details and background of the Bolante affair, nothing was offered, which in itself is much too strange, considering that consulate officers can definitely obtain basic information from the US authorities, having the official foreign government status.
But giving out information that Bolante’s case involved a canceled visa made things even worse, since there have been too many Filipinos — relatively known and unknown — who have had their visas canceled by US authorites, denied entry to the US and detained very briefly, with these Filipinos quickly shipped back, without being arrested, and without having to post bail of $100,000 or have a hearing. And this is Joc-Joc Bolante, known to be a close ally and associate of the presidential couple, who many times over, ensured his protection when he flitted in and out of the country to evade being called to the Senate to testify on the P3-billion fertilizer funds scam.
More strange official behavior was noted. On the day of the hearing, the DFA claimed that Bolante had spurned the Arroyo government’s assistance, invoking privacy, then saying all queries on Bolante should be coursed through his lawyer in Manila, who couldn’t be found. Then came word that Bolante, who is now detained in a federal jail — which may mean that Bolante is out of the LA Immigration jurisdiction -- is seeking political asylum, which is strange in itself. And the DFA officials were called to a meeting on the Bolante issue, with a report sent to Malacañang on how to treat the issue. All for a canceled visa?
Reports also said among the issues discussed in that meeting between DFA officials was the money laundering charge, which is interesting since Bolante has been tagged too many times as the presidential couple’s bagman, even long before the fertilizer funds scam was first exposed.
Ninez further pounds the nail on it's head:
Joc-Joc Bolante must be ready to sing — not before the Filipino people, but before the American authorities, for Malacañang to suddenly say it is now studying ways of extraditing the controversial P3-billion Fertilizer Man — and this, after Gloria’s lackey of a Justice secretary, already stated bluntly that there is no way they can extradite Bolante because (a) there are no charges against him in the country and (b) the arrest order for Bolante from the Senate is not enforceable in the United States, that has jurisdiction at this time.
It is now official too, that the P3-billion Fertilizer Man has asked for political asylum, which is much too strange a move, as he is certainly known to be the presidential couple’s close financial confidante and was in fact being protected all this time, when he slipped in and out of the country.
Why apply for political asylum in the US and even have himself detained in a federal prison? Surely he is not shaking in his boots because of the Senate’s probe of the fertilizer funds scam. So the Senate found him guilty and recommended his being charged with plunder in the Ombudsman, but he, being in the presidential couple’s innermost circle, certainly knows that the Ombudsman would be protecting him, by not doing anything about the Senate case against Bolante, just as the Ombudsman, then headed by Simeon Marcelo, did nothing about the plunder and money-laundering raps against former Justice Secretary Hernando Perez, and just as Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, Mike A’s trusted pal, didn’t do anything but sit on the Comelec commissioners’ anomalous poll automated machines contraption. And not to forget, even if Gutierrez recommends the poll commissioners for impeachment, why, there is always Gloria’s congressmen to kill the impeachment complaint. And didn’t the bishops already junk the impeachment process as a means to search for the truth?
Joc-Joc was certainly a protected specie under the Arroyo adminstration. Immigration even lies for Joc-Joc and ensures that there is no stamped entry and departure on his passport. So why should he seek asylum?
There could be varied reasons behind this move by Joc-Joc. For one, Sen. Ramon Magsaysay intimated that his life may be in danger, as some people want him killed — and the first guess would be right. But why? Why may be due to the fact that he may know too much, or he may be asking too much from very important people in the Philippines.
There are too, indications that Joc-Joc’s move caught Malacañang and its prostituted Department of Foreign Affairs off-guard, so much so that for some six days, they all maintained silence and were at a loss at how to handle the Bolante incident, with the DFA even asking Gloria how to handle this incident which they all claimed was a canceled visa problem.
Besides, for such Arroyo VIP, it is not unlikely that everytime Bolante would be anywhere in the world, there would be Philippine Embassy people greeting him upon arrival and taking care of airport and hotel stuff, not to mention dinners and entertainment. Apparently, Joc-Joc dispensed with these perks. Also, Bolante reportedly rejected the Philippine consular officers’ assistance during his hearing with US officials. But then again, it makes no sense for one seeking political asylum to have Philippine diplomats assisting him.
When one — such as Joc-Joc, seeks political asylum, this can only mean that he has decided to break his ties with the presidential couple, which can only mean more political trouble for Gloria and her government, if not total devastation for her. After all, one seeks political asylum out of fear of his government’s political persecution, which is no one else but Gloria — and it certainly can’t be from the Senate’s persecution, since it has been shown that in such instances, the Senate is toothless. And it can’t be just all about the P3-billion fertilizer funds scam. That’s an internal matter to the Philippines and the US has no jurisdiction over a local crime.
But then again, if that local crime’s funds inch their way into American shores, as in money laundering, then this becomes a crime and Americans certainly have that jurisdiction now.
Do your math. From the P3-billion fertilizer funds scam, only a few millions were distributed to the congressmen, governors and mayors, and the fertilizers, overpriced by at least 1,000 percent, were already diluted in the first place. So where the other billions go, if not to private accounts, not in the Philippines either. Still, there was no doubt, more of the millions going out of the country and into foreign shores, which can only be done by political biggies in the country. Wasn’t a political heavy in Switzerland recently, and rushed to the US when the Bolante caper erupted?
So what song is Joc-Joc ready to sing, to make Gloria and her allies much too jittery?
What may be clear is that Joc-Joc’s lips may not be sealed anymore, which is why Gloria now wants him back and perhaps stilled forevermore.
UPDATE: DFA sat on the Bolante report for 5 days. bakit kaya?
Meanwhile, career foreign service officers also yesterday scored the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) for employing “Garci-style” delaying tactics in keeping the arrest of Bolante under wraps.
According to the Union of Filipino Foreign Service Officers (Uniffors), DFA spokesman Gilbert Asuque’s explanation on why the DFA kept mum was similar to its excuses in confirming whether former Commission on Elections Commissioner Virgilio “Garci” Garcillano had fled the country.
“The DFA exercised the same delaying tactics with the Singapore government’s confirmation of Garcillano’s entry and departure from Changi International Airport. (It should be ashamed)!” Uniffors said in a statement on its blog site.
In 2005, the group noted that the DFA held out for a week before confirming from Singapore authorities that Garcillano had indeed left the Philippines and landed in Singapore.
Its confirmation came after Garcillano already left Singapore.
Garcillano’s vanishing act happened at the height of the scandal arising from the “Hello Garci” tapes, which contain his mobile-phone conversations with President Arroyo on their rigging the May 2004 elections in her favor.
Uniffors also noted that Mike Flemming, spokesman for the US Customs and Border Protection Service, had said the Philippine consulate in Los Angeles has known since July 7 that Bolante was arrested and detained by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
It quoted Flemming as saying the US ICE had “sent them (DFA) a fax, and we also spoke to them on the phone.”
Yet, Uniffors said, Asuque did not tell the public about Bolante’s arrest until July 12 and blamed Los Angeles Consul General Willy Gaa for the delay.
“Well, that raises two questions. Why did Gaa sit on the information for three days and why did Asuque sit on it for another two days?” the group asked.
The controversial Bolante, allegedly the bagman of First Gentleman Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo, is wanted in the Philippine Senate for his alleged role in the diversion of P728 million in fertilizer funds to the campaign chest of Mrs. Arroyo in the 2004 polls.
“We all know why the consulate and the DFA sat on the report. The question is not why the delay but who are these people serving — the public or Mrs. Arroyo?” Uniffors again asked.
Bolante, while he was on the run from the Senate, had been practically abandoned by Malacañang, which said he no longer is its concern, having given up his government post long ago.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment