By ELLEN TORDESILLAS, AVIGAIL OLARTE, YVONNE CHUA and LUZ RIMBAN
THE Office of the Ombudsman and Pampanga provincial capitol have no record of presidential son and Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo filing any supplemental Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Networth (SALN) for 2002 where he said he reported the assets of his wife Angela Montenegro after they married, as required by law.
Mikey’s SALN for 2003 is also not in the files of both offices.
The supplemental SALN, which Mikey and his lawyer Ruy Rondain produced last week, amends his declared 2002 assets of P5 million to P68.7 million, an increase they said was brought about by his marriage to Angela in June 2002. Mikey was then Pampanga vice governor.
“Nung kinasal siya, precisely because gusto niyang ideklara yung mga joint assets nila ng asawa niya, nag-file siya ng supplemental SALN (When he got married, precisely because he wanted to declare his and his wife’s joint assets, he filed a supplemental SALN),” Rondain told DZRH commentator Joe Taruc in the morning radio program “Damdaming Bayan.”
Marrying an “independently wealthy” woman is the latest justification Mikey has provided for the jump in his net worth, which stood at P74 million in 2004 and P99 million last year. Mikey has said his wealth enabled him to purchase real property, including a $1.32-million beachfront house in Foster City, California in 2006.
Mikey had previously said, and then denied, that his wealth came from campaign contributions and wedding gifts. VERA Files found that his statements of contributions and expenses for the 2004 and 2007 campaigns show him receiving no donations of any kind.
Last week, the Office of the Deputy Ombudsman for Luzon told VERA Files it had no record of Mikey’s 2002 supplemental SALN and his 2003 filing. The Pampanga Human Resources Management Office also certified there are no such documents in its files.
Mikey’s office provided VERA Files a copy of his supplemental SALN. But the document bears neither a “received” stamp nor the date that usually goes with it. As such, there is no indication of when the statement was filed, or whether it was filed at all.
And unlike his regular SALN for 2001 and 2002, the notarial details were not stamped or typed onto the document, but entirely handwritten, including the labels for such entries as “Doc. No.”
Former Civil Service Commission chair Karina David said public officials rarely file supplemental SALNs. She said reporting bigger assets only raises more questions on how they managed to acquire these.
David and sources from the Office of the Ombudsman also told VERA Files that the ones who resort to supplemental filings are usually those who are already under investigation. These are officials who underreport their assets and are being subjected to a lifestyle check.
Mikey and Rondain’s appearance on DZRH came a week after Mikey was interviewed on the morning television program “Unang Hirit” hosted by Solita Monsod and Arnold Clavio.
These media appearances stemmed from a VERA Files report published Aug. 31 which said Mikey did not declare in his 2007 and 2008 SALN his Foster City home, which he bought and then transferred to Angela in 2006.
Mikey insists the house belongs to Beach Way Park LLC, a company in which Mikey said he is a shareholder. Yet records at the San Mateo County Assessor’s office list Angela Arroyo Montenegro as the grantor or owner of the property.
In a separate interview last week, Rondain also said VERA Files had been selective in its research and that it “cherry-picked” Mikey’s documents to put him in a bad light. “They knew there was a supplement SALN in 2003, why did they not include it in their research? Is it because it would have ruined their foregone conclusion that my client had built up his wealth scandalously and not gradually?” he said.
But VERA Files could not have reported on the amended SALN and the 2003 SALN because these were not filed with both the Deputy Ombudsman for Luzon and the Pampanga Human Resources Management Office, the repositories of SALN for provincial officials and employees, from which the public and the media access these documents.
Mikey said his lawyers filed the supplemental statement in August 2003. The copy faxed by his office to VERA Files shows him declaring a net worth of P68.7 million, which was the sum of his personal assets: P21.2 million in cash; P18 million in jewelry, watches, clothes and other personal effects; P3 million in motor vehicles; and P26.5 million in shares of stocks and club shares.
His regular SALN for 2002, a copy of which is available at the Ombudsman and was faxed last week by the congressman’s office to VERA Files, shows him having only P5 million in personal assets, including P2.14 million in shares of stocks even when he did not declare any business interests or financial connections at the time.
Last week, a group of government workers sued Mikey for graft and perjury for failing to declare in his SALN some of his assets, the Foster City house included. The case was filed before the Ombudsman by the Confederation for Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees (Courage).
This is not the first time that Mikey’s wealth has come under scrutiny, VERA Files learned. Sources from the Office of the Ombudsman said a complaint in 2006 prompted it to look into Mikey’s SALN. The investigation stopped, however, after investigators were summoned in 2007 to a meeting at the central office, they said.
Ombudsman investigators who have had plenty of experience conducting lifestyle checks point to what they called “red flags” that could indicate assets and other ill-gotten wealth being amassed and concealed. These include reporting having a wealthy spouse, transferring property to spouses or listing them under corporations, taking out “loans” from relatives for which there are no paper trails, owning unprofitable businesses with substantial assets, and racking up increasing liabilities that cannot possibly be paid for on a public official’s salary.
Mikey has been reporting in his liabilities an amount of P27 million, which he listed first as a “personal loan from relatives,” and then as “advances from relatives.” The amount remained unchanged in his SALN from 2005 to July 2007. In December 2007, his “advances from relatives” grew to P33 million.
Although Mikey declared no business interests in his regular 2001 and 2002 SALN, records of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) show he owned P125,000 worth of shares in Franchino Farms Inc., a company set up in 2002. Mikey’s supplemental SALN, however, lists Franchino Farm.
There have been no SEC filings for Franchino, or any record at all of whether the company was ever operational. The company’s paid-up capital in 2002 was P80,000.
Franchino Farms is listed as being engaged in the managing, leasing and operation of agricultural lands and fishing rights and other concessions, and in the raising and breeding of racehorses and cattle.
The company was set up with four other shareholders: Raphael Mondragon, Jonathan Molina, Franchino Pamintuan, and Noel Flores. Mondragon was among the secondary sponsors of Mikey and Angela in their wedding. Molina was an offeror. Pamintuan, Mikey’s cousin, was also among the groomsmen. Noel Flores was at the time Mikey’s legal consultant.
A few months before Franchino Farms was created, Mikey and his other friends formed Klub Don Juan de Manila Inc as a nonprofit group.
Its SEC records state that it is a club “for the social enjoyment of its members,” most of whom were horseracing enthusiasts. Newsbreak magazine had earlier reported that the group had once organized the inaugural festival of the “one-million-peso Don Juan de Manila Derby sponsored by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office. Other races in the festival guaranteed prizes from 130,000 to 150,000 pesos each bankrolled by the Klub, the Manila Jockey Club, and the Home Development Mutual Fund.”
The company was set up along with horseowners Antonio Eleazar, Dante Arevalo, Lamberto Almeda Jr., and Alberto Trinidad; Malate businessman Myther Bunag; partymate and 2007 Nueva Ecija congressional candidate Gay Padiernos; and George Diploma. Each put in a contribution of P10,000 for a total of P80,000.
Mikey declared three more companies in 2006: Mikey Horseman Bar and Grill Inc., Visualtoon Creations Inc. and LPG Auto Gas. The SEC has no records of LPG Auto Gas.
Financial statements posted by Mikey Horseman and Bar Grill show the company sustaining losses of P1.5 million in 2008, P1.2 million in 2007 and P49,572.37 in 2006.
The company was set up in 2006 to establish and operate “restaurants, coffee shops, refreshment parlors, cocktail lounges,” among others. Mikey, whose address was “Malacanang Palace, City of Manila,” was listed as president with P250,000 worth of subscribed shares.
In his July 2007 SALN, Mikey listed two new companies, Los Manos Verde Inc. and Beach Way Park. Mikey listed his “investments in US Corp.” to be worth P12.8 million but did not identify the corporation.
Los Manos Verdes is registered in the SEC as a company engaged in manufacturing, importing, exporting, buying and selling of fruits, vegetables, herbs, poultry, fertilizers, veterinary medicines and vitamins, among others.
In its 2008 financial statement, Los Manos posted no income for the year. It listed its current assets at P559,450 and current liabilities of P6.5 million. It had a subscribed and paid-up capital of P2 million.
Los Manos was set up with friends Renato Lingat Jr., Junjun Molina, top jockey trainer Ricardo Paman Jr. and Almeda. Lingat is also project director of the Mikey Against Poverty Program.
In 2008, Mikey acquired two real estate companies, U18 Properties Inc. and La Vista Investments and Holdings Inc.
U18 Properties listed Almeda, Molina, Mondragon and a certain Gabriel Timothy Exconde as incorporators. Each had subscribed shares of P2 million, with an amount paid-up of P500,000.
Meanwhile, the family-owned La Vista Investments posted total assets worth P270 million, with non-current assets of P268 million. An entity which also owns shares in La Vista Investments is Rivulet Agro-Industrial Corp, whose chair is Mikey’s uncle, Negros Occidental Rep. Ignacio “Iggy” Arroyo.
Rivulet subscribed to its shares by transferring six parcels of land in Quezon City to La Vista. Rivulet is the company that owns the Arroyos’ Hacienda Bacan, a sugar plantation in Negros Occidental being contested by farmers’ groups.
Being a newly formed corporation, La Vista posted no income for the year.
