By Ducky Paredes
Malaya
Malaya
WHO is really doing all the rice smuggling? Is this being done by someone also known as David Tan, apparently an alias used by at least three individuals including one Davidson Bangayan or is the smuggling being done what a lawyer calls the Quezon Mafia?
Lawyer Argee Guevarra, president of the Sanlakas party, believes that the identified rice smuggling lord “David Tan” is actually a non-existent phantom to deflect attention y from the plunder complaint he filed against Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala and National Food Authority Administrator Orlan Calayag over the importation of overpriced rice from Vietnam.
Argee says: “The Quezon Mafia is composed of Secretary Alcala’s trusted political lieutenants who hail from Quezon Province, and most of them are now working and holding sensitive positions at the Department of Agriculture.
“I will come out with the list of the Quezon Mafia members as soon as I’ve completed gathering all the information regarding the group. What I can tell you now is one of Alcala’s most trust lieutenants is NFA administrator Orlan Calayag”. Calayag served as chief of staff when Alcala was still a congressman.
Instead of going after the fictitious David Tan, says Argee, government investigators should investigate and prosecute the real smugglers in the Agriculture Department.
“The credibility-breaking contention of Secretary Alcala in blaming the country’s rice woes on a single individual supposedly named David Tan, a ghost at that, speaks volumes of his desperate attempt to camouflage rice smuggling undertaken by the DA through its public sector monopolization of the country’s rice trade”, says Guevarra.
Guevarra says, “When the truth is out that there is no David Tan from Davao to speak of but a Davidson Bangayan from Manila whose brush with the law is for allegedly pilfering electricity, not rice smuggling.”
“To save face and to shore up a shot credibility, Secretary Alcala will repackage David Tan as Davidson Bangayan. In law, the legal maxim ‘Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus’ applies to Alcala: Falsehood in one statement is falsehood in all of their allegations.
“Given the farcical lengths with which David Tan was surfaced as Davidson Bangayan–from the realm of obscurity to the spotlight of notoriety, it appears that Mr. Bangayan is being primed as a fall guy”, Guevarra said.
Guevarra said he has sources from the Agriculture Department and Customs telling him that the NBI should check reports that there really is a David Tan who is not a Filipino but a Hong Kong national.
“This David Tan was supposed to be a former business partner of Secretary Alcala in the rice trading business until their alleged relationship soured.
“It is perhaps more fruitful for government investigation to focus on the David Tans from within the Agriculture Department. I have already charged an Alfredo Roa in the plunder complaint I filed against Secretary Alcala who was responsible for receiving kickbacks meant for Agriculture officials from the April 2013 Vietnam rice importation and who, just after Yolanda struck, proceeded to Hong Kong with Agriculture officials and consultants to seal a 500,000 metric tons of rice from Southern Vietnam Food Corp., the partial shipment of which was recently reported to have arrived in the Subic Free Port and is facing tax payment troubles.”
Argee says that the Justice Department should go after the alleged bagman, known as “Buddy R.”
“Buddy R is a real person while David Tan is a product of fiction, a bogeyman or a phantom created to cow legitimate rice traders who oppose the G2G scheme. I will ask the DOJ to investigate this person,” Guevarra says.
Guevarra also chided Abono party-list Rep. Rosendo So for defending Alcala and acting as his spokesman in an effort to demonize David Tan.
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima on Wednesday said the National Bureau of Investigation was sticking by its theory that businessman Davidson Bangayan is the David Tan, whom Alcala has tagged as the head of a massive rice smuggling syndicate.
De Lima said despite Bangayan’s release from custody Tuesday, the NBI will pursue its investigation into his possible involvement in the rice smuggling cartel.
“NBI is more or less confident that they have the right guy. They said they are sufficiently convinced that Davidson Bangayan, the one who surfaced and (was) arrested is David Tan,” De Lima told reporters.
“I’m actually challenging the NBI to do that—build a strong case. I want more proof that he and David Tan are one and the same person,” she said.
De Lima said she would discuss the matter with Alcala and Customs Commissioner John Sevilla to coordinate the ongoing probe on rice smuggling.
De Lima said the NBI did not conclude that it had arrested the wrong person. It was the Caloocan regional trial court, which had issued an arrest warrant against him in the pilferage case, which cleared Bangayan.
She said the NBI was compelled to free Bangayan after his lawyers said the arrest warrant was for “David Tan” and not “Davidson Bangayan.”
The same arrest warrant became the basis the NBI used to immediately arrest Bangayan after he voluntarily appeared before the agency on Tuesday to deny reports linking him in rice smuggling.
“This is the first time for me to see an arrest warrant where the court is the one that clears a person,” De Lima said.
“Why did the warrant of arrest explicitly state David Tan is not Davidson Bangayan? We have questions that need answers,” she asks.
Bangayan also dismissed as “unfounded, speculative” allegations that Bangayan’s group of companies – Silver Dragon Resources Singapore Pte. Ltd., Silver Dragon Hongkong Limited, Advanced Scrap Specialist Corp.,
Amphibian Metal Trading Co., Advanced Transystem Corp. and Advanced Scrap Metal Corp. – had links to the alleged activities of Tan.
Amphibian Metal Trading Co., Advanced Transystem Corp. and Advanced Scrap Metal Corp. – had links to the alleged activities of Tan.
A Customs agent says there are two other David Tans aside from Bangayan.
“The name David Tan is a known alias in Customs. But the problem is there are three A.K.A. David Tans at the Pier,” the agent said.
Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI) chairman Jesus Arranza identified Bangayan as the alleged big-time rice smuggler David Tan, from a sworn affidavit of Bangayan that accused Arranza in a libel case where Bangayan’s affidavit itself says that Bangayan is “also known as David Tan.”
But how else would one sear to an affidavit if part of the libel was that one referred to as “David Tan” in the libelous article?
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Francisco Domagoso alias Vice Mayor Isko Moreno, who will become mayor of Manila after the term of Joseph Estrada, is admirable for his belief in prayer particularly those he makes to the Santo Niño whose fiesta was this week.
“I literally came from garbage,” the vice mayor unashamedly says, recalling how he and his mother would scrounge for left-over fried chicken in the trash and re-fry them for their meal.
“I am nothing without God,” Domagoso says, who used to collect old newspapers, bottles and plastic items to sell to junk shops.
The vice mayor unabashedly says: “Before, it was difficult for my family to have P50. But now, I can even drink a cup of coffee worth P110.”
Domagoso says his mother Rosario taught him valuable lessons as they worked around the Santo Niño de Tondo parish church.
“I always pray to God,” he says. “I always pray to the Sto. Nino. I am a devotee of the Santo Nino because I prayed to him and my prayers were answered.”
“When you grow up and live in Tondo, one really becomes a devotee of the Sto. Nino,” he says.
Moreno became city councilor of Tondo for three terms and is now on this third and last term as vice mayor. He has studied in the world’s top universities, such as Harvard in the United States and Oxford in England after studies at the University of the Philippines, Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila and law at Arellano University.
“I am thankful to God, to the Sto. Nino, for everything I have now, for all the blessings,” he says.
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Readers who missed a column can access www.duckyparedes.com/blogs. This is updated daily. Your reactions are welcome at duckyparedes@yahoo.com or you can send me a message through Twitter @diretsahan.
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