by Frank Wenceslao
Former UP President Jose Abueva sent his comments on my GlobalBalita.com column “Villar Unfit for President or Public Trust,” to wit:
“I strongly disagree with your criticism of Senator Villar. If Senator Villar were not a leading candidate with a good chance of winning and becoming our next President, his rivals and opponents would not be attacking him. It’s a matter of personal trust. As a citizen and a political scientist, I trust Senator Manny Villar to be an honest man and a highly qualified candidate for President. I also trust Senator Nene Pimentel who is supporting Senator Villar. I also believe that Gibo Teodoro and Dick Gordon are honest and highly capable leaders and candidates for President.
Jose V. Abueva, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Public Administration, University of the Philippines.”
Before I could respond below, these passages in Greg Macabenta’s column entitled “President Villarroyo?” caught my attention. He wrote, “Manny Villar is lucky, he is running for president of the Philippines. If this were an election campaign in the US, he would be shamed into withdrawing because of the censure threatened by at least 12 of his colleagues in the Senate.
“He (Villar) is also lucky because a censure might be the worst thing the Senate will do to him. In fact, if the erstwhile champion of good government, Alan Peter Cayetano, were to have his way, there won’t even be a censure and the damning findings of the Senate President himself, Juan Ponce Enrile, would be treated like a worthless piece of paper.”
I asked Abueva: Do you disagree with my criticism because you think Villar hasn’t engaged in graft and corruption like Gloria Macapagal Arroyo?
The best evidence against Villar is his incredible PhP43 billion ($940M) net worth, which could’ve come only from loans Villar obtained for his housing development corporations (Villar-HDCs for brevity) to acquire and develop thousands of hectares (How the lands were acquired from different owners is yet to be explained) into 23 subdivisions where 200,000 housing units were built across all income classes according to Mrs. Cynthia Villar no less.
Worse, Villar conspired with DPWH officials for his HDCs to qualify to borrow from government financing institutions (GFIs) and government corporations (GOCCs). Villar-HDCs include the family-owned Capitol Bank that borrowed heavily from the Bangko Sentral to address liquidity crises and repaid the loans with foreclosed properties of dubious valuation, a violation of the BSP charter that requires the loans be paid only with cash proceeds of auctioned off collaterals.
In fact, when both were House members from 1992-1998, Joker Arroyo charged Villar of violating the Constitution’s prohibition against conflicts-of-interest and the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees (RA 6713) for borrowing heavily from GFIs and GOCCs especially the BSP’s loans to Capitol Bank.
Villar undoubtedly pressured DPWH officials to discard the costly feasibility studies, engineering design and plans done for C-5 Extension and an 8-lane road project linking Cavite to Laguna causing the government to lose billions of pesos plus the cost to revise the preparatory works for the road projects estimated to have reached over PhP6 billion which the Senate demands Villar’s restitution.
It’s of public knowledge that instead of straight alignment which engineering economics requires, the roads were made to “snake” through Villar-HDCs’ 23 subdivisions obviously to provide them ingress and egress which would’ve cost billions of pesos which Villar couldn’t have been financed by GFIs because of single-borrower limit (which explains why Villar-HDCs were broken into several corporations) without national budget allotments that Villar is accused of “earmarks” which sent some members of the US Congress to jail.
Let it be stressed the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) and other GFIs are just re-lending foreign loans from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, etc. Hence, if Villar-HDCs diverted part of their loans for his personal use, say, to amass his incredible net worth or for his presidential campaign, the Filipino people surely have lost much more than the amount the Senate’s demanding from Villar to pay back.
I asked Abueva another question: Do you believe Villar’s net worth and the growth of Villar-HDCs assets are statistically probable from their 1992 baseline when he’s first elected to the House of Representatives with him and his wife both members of Congress to date, or a 16-year period?
Or else, the growth rate of the Villars’ net worth has been faster than those of Lucio Tan and Henry Sy.
Up to now the Villars are proud in claiming of starting from scratch, i.e. they didn’t inherit wealth like the Zobel-Ayalas, Madrigals, Lopezes, etc., yet he’s listed among the 10 richest Filipinos ahead of any Madrigal or Lopez.
For what purpose does the couple cling to their rags-to-riches story? Surely, to entice gullible Filipinos to vote for Villar and probably get Joseph Estrada’s “bakya” voters to overcome Noynoy Aquino’s lead in poll surveys. Perhaps, lay the basis for a “dagdag-bawas” victory as in 2004 if it’s true that GMA is secretly backing Villar over Gilbert Teodoro. I therefore asked Abueva, would he still vote for Villar?
Win or lose, the Villars are in big trouble. The government can sue them for restitution of its losses attendant to Villar-HDCs’ criminal activities. Since I consider Abueva a dear and respected friend like Sen. Nene Pimentel, I’ve shared with them Pamusa’s plans against the Villars depending on the cooperation of the next President which GMA hasn’t given Pamusa.
To avert GMA staying in power beyond June 30, 2010 and her corrupt regime continue, Pamusa may preemptively bring legal action in the US based on the Senate committee of the whole report against Villar if as I’ve hoped Pimentel isn’t able to prevail on him to withdraw his candidacy.
Villar and wife would be like other foreign leaders prosecuted for corruption under the UN Convention Against Corruption’s international cooperation provisions (UNCAC-ICP) enforced by the US with the cooperation of other governments.
The Villars are probably guilty under US laws of mail or wire fraud of transferring illegal income to the US; money laundering of depositing funds from the proceeds of corruption in the US banking system; violation of RICO of investing illegal funds in US real estate, securities and business enterprises and conspiracy to commit said crimes.
It will be recalled Imelda was charged of violating RICO in 1988 and acquitted but Pamusa can revive the case under UNCAC-ICP using the evidence of PCGG on Marcos’ and cronies’ ill-gotten wealth. Like Imelda, the Villars can be prosecuted in the US more so when asked by the next President.
Pamusa will be the complainant. If convicted, the Villars can go to federal prison like former Ukrainian PM Pavlo Lazarenko sentenced by a federal court in San Francisco to nine years in jail for wire fraud, money laundering, and related offenses with abuse of office. The USDOJ and other federal agencies are engaged in efforts to recover the proceeds of his crimes.
Or, they could be tried with evidence transferred to the Philippine trial court by the USDOJ and other federal agencies like Peru’s ex-President Alberto Fujimori and his intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos now serving 37 and 21 years in jail, respectively, for corruption, abuse of office and human rights violation.
The evidence against Fujimori came from the investigation and forfeiture action of the United States Attorney (federal prosecutor) and FBI in Miami that seized more than $20 million of Fujimori’s bank deposits and repatriated the funds to Peru, which were used as evidence in his trial. US federal agencies with cooperating foreign governments led to Montesinos’ arrest and extradition and the repatriation of millions more of their illicit assets to Peru from other jurisdictions.
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