Wong: My wife paid Ping’s cell phone bills

Chinese businessman Kam-sin "Kim" Wong denied yesterday that he paid the mobile phone bills of Sen. Panfilo Lacson when the latter was still chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP).

Wong told a joint hearing of three Senate committees that while it was his wife who paid the phone bills that were under his name, the money actually came from Lacson’s secretary.

The garments factory-owner and restaurateur noted that there were times when the phone line would be disconnected because Lacson’s secretary failed to remit the payment to Wong’s wife.

Opposition Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr., however, averred that Lacson’s acceptance of the cell phone "constitutes bribery" but admitted the Senate ethics committee had no power to probe Lacson because the incident happened when their colleague was not yet a senator.

While Wong admitted that he purchased the cell phone for Lacson for an unspecified reason, he said Lacson refused to accept the phone as a gift but agreed to borrow it.

Wong, an alien resident for almost 29 years, said he met Lacson in 1997 through then Senior Superintendent Francisco Zubia.

The authorities had claimed that Wong acquired the cell phone and paid the bills because he wanted to monitor the communications of the PNP chief.

Authorities also claimed Wong needed to have instant access to Lacson because he was the police chief’s principal link to Chinese drug syndicates.

Wong, however, denied involvement in the drug trade and claimed he did not even know what shabu, or metamphetamine hydrochloride, looks like or how it is used.

But former police agent Angelo "Ador" Mawanay, who also testified before the same joint hearing, identified Wong as the man to whom he directly delivered two sizable amounts of shabu.

Mawanay claimed he delivered shabu to Wong in April 1999 and January 2000 in one of three restaurants in Manila partly owned by Wong.

Mawanay also claimed that Lacson instructed him to withdraw $2 million from one of Lacson’s alleged bank accounts in foreign banks but the transaction did not push through because Mawanay had some problems in securing travel documents.

But Wong said he was never involved in drug trafficking and claimed he was even an active supporter of the private anti-drug group "Drug Watch."

Calling Mawanay a "liar," Wong noted the inconsistencies in his testimonies and denied ever meeting the former police agent.

Wong’s lawyers claimed Wong’s accusers have failed "to present credible witnesses and testimonies showing that the latter has been involved in drug trafficking."

The Chavez Laureta and Associates law offices, headed by former Solicitor General Frank Chavez, said in a statement, that even the testimony of former Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim was based only on hearsay.

"So weak are the testimonies that (Pimentel) and even Sen.. Ralph Recto cut off Lim’s narration of second-hand information on Kim’s alleged illegal activities," the statement read.

The lawyers claimed "Lim’s tirade against Kim Wong started when the businessman supported the re-election bid of incumbent Mayor Lito Atienza against Lim."

Lim had accused Wong of complicity in the alleged killing of a certain Angelito Sy, an interpreter of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) who allegedly learned of one shipment of drugs from Hong Kong.

Mawanay also accused Lacson of complicity in the alleged killing of Sy, who remains missing.

Mawanay claimed to have been an agent of the PAOCTF, which made him knowledgeable of Lacson’s criminal activities. He has since turned informer of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, under Col. Victor Corpus.

Earlier yesterday, Corpus told senators that drug syndicates are so well entrenched in the country that even the "elite of the elite" in the Philippine Navy have also been used in the smuggling of drugs into the country.

Corpus claimed the defunct Special Reaction Unit of the Navy’s elite Special Warfare Group (SWAG) was used to retrieve narcotics which passing ships would drop in open water.

Meanwhile, Ombudsman Aniano Desierto said senators are not immune from criminal prosecution but stressed he still needs to study if he has jurisdiction over the arbitrary detention complaint Mawanay filed against eight senators.

Mawanay filed the complaint over the weekend after three Senate committees ordered him detained after he failed to substantiate his accusations against Senators Loren Legarda and Noli de Castro. — Aurea Calica, Delon Porcalla