GMA regime knows no limits to its greed!

SPENDS $3.5 MILLION OF GOVERNMENT FUNDS TO GRAB $35 MILLION FROM JUDGMENT WON BY MARTIAL LAW VICTIMS IN US COURTS.

Buys loyalty of PCGG Chair through reported junket of eight relatives and friends to the tune of P3.2 million PCGG Funds.
While we look forward to a favorable review by the US Supreme Court of the judgment won by the claimants in the lower courts, we regret to announce that the GMA regime knows no limits to its greed.
As we approach Holy Week, she unconscionably spends an estimated U.S. $3 million of government funds (P150 million) to pay the law firms of Mayer Brown & Platt together with Heller Ehrman to obstruct the awarding of $35 million in the Arelma case. Over and above this, she has recently hired a Washington lobbyist in the law firm of Covington and Burling for an annual fee of $US 500,000 to, among others, lobby against the $35 million awarded by the American courts to the martial law victims.
In an inter-pleader case to determine who should be the rightful owner of the Arelma funds, the Hawaii district court awarded the martial law victims $35 million in July 2004 on the strength of the judgment won by the victims in 1995 ($1.9 billion). This award was affirmed unanimously by the U.S. Court of Appeals in May and in June of 2006.
The martial law victims have so far won while the Arroyo regime has lost in the US courts, but up to now the victims have not been compensated. The reason for this is the fact that, instead of rejoicing and supporting the US$35 million compensation for 7,500 victims whose human rights were brutally violated under martial rule, Gloria prefers to grab this money for herself and her decrepit regime. To be able to do this, she has gone out of her way to pay American lawyers an estimated $3.5 million and has used public funds for the PCGG and the Solicitor General to fight the martial law victims all the way to the Supreme Court.
According to news reports provided by PCGG insiders that have come out recently, Camilo Sabio is not going to Washington, D.C. on a simple mission to try and stop the victims from recovering compensation from the judgment they had won in the courts. He will, in fact, use taxpayers’ money for a junket that includes at least eight people who have no relevance in the March 17 Supreme Court oral arguments, considering that only the American lawyers hired for $3.5 million are permitted to defend the regime’s case to obstruct the judgment won by the victims.
Sabio’s Junket Gang is reported to include his “brother-in-law and special assistant Gerry Alo Ledonio III; his chief-of-staff Albert Feria; his daughter May Sabio-Feria; his wife Marlene Sabio; a certain Jaime Bautista, also a consultant of Sabio’s; OIC for asset and management Sonny dela Paz; PCGG secretary Romulo Siazon, and accounting officer Malou Navarro.” (Malaya p. A2, March 12, 2008). If we are to believe the same newspaper report, each member of Sabio’s Junket Gang was allegedly given “$10,000 for plane tickets and pocket money, the funds coming from the interest earnings of $30 million in PCGG litigation funds deposited at the Philippine National Bank.” This is a whopping $80,000 or P3,200,000!
This adds insult to injury considering the fact that Camilo Sabio has a pending case before the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission for misuse of sequestered funds involving some P10 million and above through several withdrawals from sequestered funds channeled to his personal account. He has no business representing the Republic of the Philippines in the US Supreme Court and should have been suspended much earlier, with an immediate replacement along similar paths taken by the Commission on Elections with respect to Benjamin Abalos.
Claimants 1081 has requested Akbayan representative Risa Hontiveros to file a resolution for an immediate inquiry into PCGG expenditures involving exorbitant fees for American lawyers and the anomalous practices of Camilo Sabio and his junket gang. Akbayan likewise calls for his suspension and immediate replacement as PCGG Chair along a similar path taken by former COMELEC Chair Benjamin Abalos.

ETTA P. ROSALES

Chair, Claimants 1081

Chair Emeritus, Akbayan

14 March 2008