By JOSEPH HOLANDES UBALDE
Interaksyon.com
INSTEAD of determining who truly owned the overpriced helicopters sold to the Philippine National Police in 2009, the Senate veered to digging up the past attempts of Rep. Ignacio “Iggy” Tuason Jr. to cover up for his brother former First Gentleman Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo.
Iggy became involved in the chopper controversy after he claimed it was him and not Mike who owned five Robinson R44 Raven 1 helicopters, two of which had been refurbished and sold as brand new to the PNP. The former First Gentleman was said to have owned and ordered the sale of two choppers to the PNP in 2009.
Senator Panfilo Lacson, member of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee investigating the purchase, began establishing the past cover ups by Iggy that stretched to as early as the 1990s.
Lacson, a staunch Arroyo critic, said that during an anti-graft probe in 1997, Iggy claimed ownership of a $2.5-million San Francisco home acquired by his brother and sister-in-law, then Senator Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, in 1993. Lacson stressed that Iggy said he owned the residence despite the fact that his declared assets for that year only amounted to a “measly” sum.
“Ito po ang unang pagsisinungaling ni Iggy para mailigtas ang kanyang kapatid na si Mike at hipag na si Gloria Arroyo,” Lacson said.
The senator then called his new witness, former Estancia town (Iloilo) mayor and retired Chief Superintendent Restituto Mosqueda to shed light on his knowledge about the Jose Pidal accounts in 2003.
On August 18, 2003, Lacson exposed in his privileged speech in the Senate that Mike owned several undeclared multimillion bank accounts. Iggy claimed in a later Senate probe in September 2003 that he owned the bank accounts and hid under the name Jose Pidal to escape from kidnapping attempts. He said he cancelled the accounts in 2001 after the Anti-Money Laundering Act took effect in the country.
Iggy doctored Pidal signatures
In his sworn affidavit, Mosqueda said Iggy “copied” the Jose Pidal signature to make it appear that he signed documents pertaining to the bank account and not his brother.
According to Mosqueda, he received a call from Rico Puno, who would later become Interior Local Government secretary, to “spare FG” from Lacson’s exposé. Mosqueda, who was then heading the PNP’s Crime Laboratory, was called by Puno in the Solleta Law offices to discuss the planned cover-up.
Immediately after, Iggy went to the PNP Crime Lab in Camp Crame to copy the Jose Pidal signature.
For his help, Mosqueda was offered by Iggy a trip to Hong Kong and a car. Mosqueda said he “politely turned down the offer.”
But following that, Mike rewarded Mosqueda by paving the way for his appointment as Regional Director of Bicol Region.
“Thank you for everything general,” Mosqueda recalled Mike Arroyo was saying during a Christmas party in 2004.
A visibly irked Puno, who also attended the Senate probe, denied the statement of Mosqueda and maintained he did not have any part in the Jose Pidal cover-up. Puno said he “might take action” against Mosqueda’s statement.
“Everything he said were lies, fabrication,” Puno said, to which Mosqueda reiterated his earlier allegations.
Why now?
But senators probing the chopper controversy are asking why Mosqueda only came forward several years after the Jose Pidal controversy has fizzled out.
“There is liberty now, freedom to tell,” Mosqueda told senators. “At that time we were under pressure.”
Senator Lacson, meanwhile, told his colleagues the nature of Mosqueda’s revelations.
“The appearance of the witness may not have any bearing to the probe but this only proves that Iggy Arroyo repeatedly came to the rescue of Mike,” Lacson said.
