Miriam calls for inquiry into 1992 Gadhafi campaign donation to Ramos

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago is calling for an inquiry into the alleged P5 million in campaign contributions received by former President Fidel Ramos from then Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi sometime in 1992.

“It’s time for Ramos to meet his maker. He now has to justify how he ever became president and he’s now continuing to act as a poser, posing as president of the Philippines,” Santiago said in a press briefing yesterday. Santiago had accused Ramos of stealing her election victory in 1992.

The allegations against Ramos were contained in one of the recent exposés of Wikileaks on the contents of a cable sent from the United States embassy in Manila to Washington.

The cable sent last July 19, 1994 by then US State Department Deputy Chief of Mission Raymond Burghardt, quoted retired De La Salle University professor Joel de los Santos, an Islamic affairs expert, as telling an embassy political officer that Ramos received the money from “Libyans.”

Ramos supposedly went to Libya with then House Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. in 1992 to negotiate a peace deal between the government and the Moro National Liberation Front.

However, Santiago cited a Newsbreak article earlier this year which questioned the real motive of the visit by Ramos and De Venecia.

According to Santiago, Section 96 of the Election Code prohibits candidates from either soliciting or receiving contributions from foreign sources and penalizes the candidate with disqualification or removal from office.