Follow the Money (to the Lualhati Foundation?)

Too bad the original photo of Erap's Midnight Cabinet Reunion (chavit, mark jimenez) with GMA is not available anymore. So i got a small copy via Yahoo.

Let's start with this story. Jimenez says $14 million bribe from IMPSA was Lacson’s fairy tale raw:

FORMER Manila Rep. Mark Jimenez yesterday said that Sen. Panfilo Lacson made up the story on the $14-million payoff for the awarding of a power contract to an Argentine firm to get back at former Justice Secretary Hernando Perez.

The contract was awarded to the Argentine firm Impsa during the Estrada administration.

In an interview, Jimenez said there was no truth to Lacson’s claim that the $2 million, which Perez had supposedly extorted from Jimenez in exchange for the latter’s “peace of mind,” was part of the bribe.

Lacson, who asked the government to explain where the remaining $12 million went, said his information came from Jimenez himself.

But Jimenez denied this, and called Lacson a “liar.”

No bribery

“That’s a [figment] of his own opportunist imagination. Lacson always has a fiction of something that happened but did not happen like his money in USA, like his Kuratong Baleleng [case], like the Dacer case. Why don’t you ask him. He’s creating something that is a novelty,” Jimenez said.

Interesting. But here's a Philippine Star article (a pro-Arroyo paper) on the Mark Jimenez Impsa deal last Sept. 5, 2003 by Jose Rodel Clapano:

Jimenez, in his privileged speech at the House last year, claimed actually releasing $14 million in kickbacks in exchange for the approval of the IMPSA power deal. The Manila lawmaker was later extradited to the United States to face charges of mail fraud and illegal campaign contribution.

The IMPSA contract was approved four days after President Arroyo assumed the presidency in January 2001.

Of the $14-million bribe, Jimenez claimed $2 million went to Perez, $1 million "for the boys" and $4 million to Malacañang "residents." The remaining $7 million remains unaccounted for.

Unaccounted for raw... wink, wink...

Remember the Past. This old Bulatlat article sheds more light on the issue.

But why in the first place did Perez approve IMPSA’s request just four days after the Arroyo government took over and despite the issues raised against it by NPC and other agencies? The “bombshell” was finally dropped when Congressman Jimenez testified before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee late last year that the justice secretary received $2 million in return for the favorable DoJ ruling on IMPSA. Jimenez and a House colleage, Rep. Willie Villarama, also said the money was part of a $14-million bribe offered to officials of the Arroyo administration. The president's husband, Mike was dragged into the controversy.

Remember the past.

Here's another Ellen Tordesillas article dated Feb. 9, 2004:

Jimenez, who brokered the IMPSA power deal wherein the Arroyo government guaranteed its foreign loans, has been quoted as having said that $14 million was given as "goodwill" money divided as follows: $2 million for the signatory of the guarantee, $2 million for the "boys', $8 million for the top guy in Malacanang.

But there were talks that only $4 million reached the Malaca?? top guy. When Jimenez was asked about it, he allegedly replied, "Huwag mo nang tanungin 'yun." (Don't ask about it anymore.) The interpretation of some was that Jimenez pocketed the rest of the money.

Giving the Arroyos millions was not new for Jimenez. Villarama revealed that from December 1998 to June 1999, he delivered to the Arroyo couple from Jimenez a total of P18 million. That's separate from the P8 million that Jimenez donated to the Arroyos' Lualhati Foundation.

Could some of Jimenez' millions have ended in Jose Pidal's account?

It's significant to remember that the Jimenez expos?n his donations to the Arroyo couple happened in early December 2002. Her approval ratings plummeted.

A few weeks after, a weary GMA announced that she was not running for president in 2004. She was widely applauded and her ratings improved.

On Oct. 5, 2003, she turned around and said she is running in 2004.

Mag-ingat kayo sa mga bagong articles (dated 2007) na lumalabas ngayon sa isyung ito. There's a lot of revisionism going on from the pro-Arroyo papers on this.

So did some of that money went to the Lualhati Foundation? I think it's time to revisit the Lualhati Foundation issue. And follow the money.

More background on the Lualhati foundation and Erap's Muslim Youth foundation (Part 1) and (Part 2).


UPDATE: Other IMPSA Related news from the web:

Poor Nani Perez: will these "kind words" be enough to appease him?

Tribune Editorial: Towards a dismissal? I don't think so, but he'll probably get a pretty light sentence just like Gen. Carlos Garcia, since hindi siya kinasuhan ng plunder ng Ombudsman. He'll be getting Camp Cupcake treatment, baby. But this will likely be the end of Nani's career or comeback aspirations. The key for the administration is to not let this IMPSA scandal spread to Arroyo, Pidal, Mark Jimenez and other allies. Containment.

My reading here is that the administration intends to turn Nani Perez into a sacrificial lamb (for pa-pogi points) while trying to appease him at the same time (para hindi siya magalit at ilabas ang lahat ng baho na nalalaman niya laban sa admin?)

UPDATE: More IMPSA Garci Jimenez news:

Ellen Tordesillas: Swiss Trip is the Reason

On January 25, Gloria Arroyo will be in Davos, Switzerland to attend this year’s World Economic Forum, an annual event supervised by the Swiss Federal government that aims to “improve the state of the world.”

Participants to the WEF come from business, politics, academe, media, and civil society.

This is the second WEF participation of Arroyo (the first was in New York in 2002) but this will be her first visit to Switzerland.

The Swiss trip is the answer to questions why after sitting on it for four years, the Arroyo administration decided to file graft and extortion charges against former Justice Secretary Hernando Perez even as Malacañang, specifically Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, declares him innocent.

Remember her signing of the repeal of the death penalty before her Vatican trip June last year? It’s all part of her image-cleansing agenda.

Arroyo expects to be asked by Swiss officials and the media about something that they referred to the Philippine government almost four years ago.

Now, she can say that charges have been filed against the recipient of the $2 million that ended in a Swiss account. She may even say that it’s proof that her government is serious about eradicating graft and corruption, which we all know is a big lie.

Kaya pala...

Ernie Maceda comments:

Mark Jimenez now claims that GMA was not involved in the extortion case of Hernando “Nani” Perez involving $2 million which Jimenez sent to Coutts Bank in Hong Kong to the account of Ernest Escaler, business associate of Perez. To sugarcoat his “clearance” of GMA, Jimenez focused the blame instead on President Joseph Estrada, citing Erap’s visit to Mendoza, Argentina, the headquarters of Impsa.

Former Finance Secretary Jose “Titoy” Pardo, Justice Secretary Artemio Tuquero, presidential aide Adel Antonino and Napocor officials testified that Erap never approved the $478-million Impsa contract which was being brokered by Jimenez.

It is also on record that then Justice Secretary Nani Perez issued an official opinion approving the Impsa contract and which subsequently was signed by GMA herself within a few days after she assumed the presidency in January 2001.

Neal Cruz has this one right:

“HE is one of us.”

With these words, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita declared former Justice Secretary Hernando Perez “innocent” of extorting $2 million from former Rep. Mark Jimenez. He meant Perez was a member of the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration and therefore he could not have done anything wrong.

Little did Ermita realize that his effort to help his fellow native of Batangas province only put Perez in a deeper hole. Being associated with the Arroyo administration is a kiss of death. That is why Cabinet members being touted as senatorial candidates of the administration are jumping off the ticket. They don’t want to run in the administration ticket. That is why Ermita himself does not want to be a candidate.

There are many things queer in the Perez case. Why did Cabinet members immediately jump in to clear him of any crime and President Arroyo of any involvement in the extortion case? Ermita was never asked what he thought of the Perez case, yet he immediately declared Perez “innocent.” Nobody said Ms Arroyo was involved in the case, yet Presidential Chief of Staff Mike Defensor immediately declared that she could not have anything to do with it. Why the hurry to clear them?

And as the opposition wondered, why was the charge only extortion (which is bailable) and not plunder (which is not bailable) when the amount involved is $2 million, equivalent to almost double the P50 million minimum that the law says automatically makes the crime plunder?

In a plunder case, Perez can turn state witness and testify who got the remaining $12 million of the $14-million bribe for the approval of the Impsa contract. Which is probably why the administration is helping Perez, instead of letting the law take its own course: to prevent him from turning state witness.

For instance, he can say why he submitted an opinion in favor of the Argentine firm Impsa just two days after Ms Arroyo took over the presidency from Joseph Estrada, and why she immediately approved it.

The message to Perez seems to be: Don’t spill the beans. We won’t abandon you. We will help you.

But if I were Perez, why would I cover up for those who got the lion’s share of the bribe? And even if the President promises to pardon him if he is convicted for extortion, he would still have to go to prison. So he should just turn state witness and tell the truth. The truth shall set you free.

Ninez Cacho Olivarez on the Erap Biopic: It's the History, Stupid!

What else does Gloria want erased? The Impsa sovereign guarantee that she and her now indicted Justice Secretary Hernando “Nani” Perez approved just two days in the presidential office that reportedly carried with it a $14-million bribe?

The same Gloria confession on video footage from the Estrada biopic was shown in court, before the Special Division of the Sandiganbayan, which was vehemently opposed by the Arroyo prosecutor, Dennis Villa-Ignacio, who also tried to convince the court that the sovereign guarantee was granted by Estrada, even when it was clear to the justices that the video showing Estrada signing a contract with Impsa was just a simple contract but without the sovereign guarantee.

It is the same line the US convicted Mark Jimenez, who is now “in” with Gloria Arroyo, is peddling in the Impsa deal, intimating to the media it was Estrada who was involved in the Impsa bribery case, without, however, explaining how Estrada could have taken the $14-million payoff when the documents prove that he never signed a sovereign guarantee benefiting Impsa and that it was Gloria and Perez who approved it.

The timeline of the sovereign guarantee also proves that the $2 million Perez received from Jimenez through the conduit, Ernest Escaler, had everything to do with the Impsa sovereign deal approved by Gloria and Perez.

It doesn’t take brains to figure this out. Two days in the presidential office, and at a time when there was no orderly transfer of power, Perez approves the Impsa sovereign guarantee, making this a priority issue. And he couldn’t have done it all by himself, without the knowledge and consent of Gloria, that’s for sure. Then some three weeks later, the $2 million is remitted to Escaler while Perez and a powerful Malacañang figure hie off to Hong Kong to check on the Coutts Bank, and have the necessary transfer made.

This cannot be erased from history, despite moves by Malacañang to ban Estrada’s biopic, just as the infamous episode of “Hello Garci” can never be erased from Philippine history, as the naked power grab of Gloria, twice over, can never be airbrushed out of history.

Heh.

And finally, from Tongue-Twisted:

What conclusions can we draw here?

First, the mafia brains behind Gloria’s administration thinks the filing of this case will make it appear that government is finally tightening its noose against corruption hoping to get nice pats on the back from the US and Europe. This, while the crimes of gang masterminds Bonnie and Clyde Arroyo and the likes of Jocjoc the Worm, Garci the Phonepal, Sabit the Collector and the Junior Don, seem inexistent.

Second, they think can now spend (pocket?) to the last penny the $20 million (P1B) US aid for the ombudsman under Bush’s Millenium Challenge Account. To them, Perez IS a big fish and therefore considered as significant compliance to the terms of the aid.

Third, they think that by downgrading the charges from money laundering and plunder to extortion and graft, they are actually doing Perez a favor, enough to keep his mouth shut. They also save MJ’s skin, and they firewalled the Arroyo couple to safety. A win-win-win here. They thought.

Fourth, they likewise got Mark Jimenez by the balls. The case downgrade is quid pro quo, Jimenez gets sweet revenge with Nani without self-inflicting damage, the palace gets awesome philantropic generosity from MJ. In bribery cases, he is as guilty as Perez, being the bribe source. Not too fast. Jimenez and Villarama’s reckless privelege speeches in congress are on record and have automatically co-implicated Jimenez with bribery and the “Malacañang residents”, too.

Fifth, there is now an official reason to be in Switzerland. The last time around, they stopped by because the EU governments they hoped to visit were all very busy - watching football. The second tranche of dollars to be deposited?

Sixth, they believe it will improve GMA’s image as it appears her gov’t is now “morally consistent” (I love that phrase!) in keeping its commitments to treaties and agreements - recently, VFA, now this MLA on Criminal Matters.

They can think and believe as they please, but the nagging question, still, is: Who believes them?