Estrada lawyers question use of alias rap

Lawyers of deposed President Joseph Estrada asked the Sandiganbayan yesterday to declare illegal the prosecutors’ reference to an alias in their plunder case against the jailed leader.

In a 12-page motion, Estrada’s legal counsel Rene Saguisag said prosecutors casually assumed that the alias "Jose Velarde" referred to Estrada when they could not even cite proofs that Velarde and the former president are one and the same.

Saguisag also said that the prosecutors could not possibly claim that Estrada had used the Velarde alias "habitually" and "publicly" since they have no evidence to prove it.

He asked the anti-graft court to hold Ombudsman Aniano Desierto, who led the filing of the plunder charges against Estrada, in contempt for the "totally fabricated assertion" that the former president signed his name as Jose Velarde in various documents of Equitable PCI Bank.

In the plunder charges he filed against the deposed president, Desierto claimed Estrada used the Velarde alias in opening rich bank accounts using ill-gotten money. He used as evidence the testimony given by Equitable PCI executives Clarissa Ocampo and Manuel Curato that they witnessed Estrada sign the name Velarde on various documents.

"If the prosecution cannot substantiate this wild hallucination, it would owe all concerned an apology for starters," Saguisag said.

Saguisag added that the inclusion of the use of an alias in the plunder case against Estrada, his son Jinggoy and lawyer Edward Serapio is "illogical" because it doesn’t pertain to all three.

"The prosecution obviously cannot consolidate the cases where A is said to be involved in four cases, with B in one case, C in another, DS in another and E in yet another, because B, C, D and E have nothing in common with each other," he explained.

Saguisag also said prosecutors failed to specify the places and dates where illegal transactions involving Estrada took place. He considered this as a sign that prosecutors simply do not have anything up their sleeves.

"No particulars were given because there was none to give," he said. "If the prosecution could, we believe it would simply amend the information to satisfy due process requirements."

Desierto claimed that on Feb. 4 this year, Estrada signed his name as Velarde on several bank documents in the presence of Ocampo and Curato.

He said this was repeated several days later at the office of lawyer Estelito Mendoza, again with the two bank executives present.

Saguisag said he has serious doubts on these claims. He said there was an "illusion" that Estrada supposedly went to Mendoza’s office, but the prosecutor could not produce any evidence to back their claim that Estrada "habitually used" the Velarde alias.

He pointed out that even in Estrada’s impeachment trial, Ocampo and Curato were not able to prove that Estrada habitually and publicly used the Velarde alias.

"So flies out the window the notion of habituality. Signing documents with or in banks suggests utmost confidentiality, not publicity," he said.