Santiago denies charges in BW scam

One of the principals named as having participated in alleged illegal stock trading of gaming firm Best World Resources Corp. (BW) Carmelo Santiago, a close ally of President Joseph Estrada, is denying charges of any wrongdoing.

Santiago, owner of steakhouse restaurant Melo's and a member of the board of directors of the National Power Corp., through his legal counsel, the ACCRA law offices, submitted his comments on the investigation being conducted by the prosecution and enforcement department of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Santiago's legal counsels have asked the SEC to clear him of any liability in connection with the BW shares controversy.

"In all of his dealings with BW shares, Mr. Santiago, like any other regular investor, were motivated purely by the prospect to profit, nothing more."

Santiago's counsels added that during the limited period when he traded for his account, May to August, 1999, the price of BW shares never exceeded P30 per share.

"While the volume of BW shares traded during that period was 1,234,491,894 shares, the shares traded by Asiasec for Santiago for the period was 11,756,000. This translates into a mere 0.95 percent of the total. Compared further to the volume of shares during the months.

January to December 1999 of 3,661,008,844, Santiago's share in the market is only 0.32 percent. It would then be quite a stretch to interpret Santiago's trading activities as market rigging of BW shares," his lawyers noted.

Santiago's lawyers also noted that all of the former's shares were sold through the PSE without knowing who the buyers were at the other end.

Santiago's counsels also refuted charges that their client was part of a grand scheme to manipulate BW Share prices.

"If Mr. Santiago was indeed privy to the alleged grand scheme of Mr. Tan and others, then he should have been very active from start to finish or all throughout 1999. When the price of BW shares meterorically rose to P107 per share in October and shortly thereafter crashed, Mr. Santiago had long ceased trading in BW shares."