A sticker bearing the name of ousted President Joseph Estrada found underneath a 15 by 14 foot cream carpet bordered with a shell design ended speculations yesterday as to the identity of the owner of the controversial Boracay Mansion in New Manila, Quezon City.
Valued at P142 million and purportedly bought with ill-gotten wealth from jueteng payoffs, among other pieces of property, was the house occupied by Laarni Enriquez, one of Estrada’s mistresses.
"This is the end of the line for Erap (Estrada)," chief special prosecutor Dennis Villa Ignacio said yesterday. "This is the house of Laarni. This is real evidence. This is proof that Estrada owns this (mansion)."
Ignacio made his statement as Sandiganbayan justices and lawyers from both panels conducted a three-hour ocular inspection of the Boracay Mansion late yesterday afternoon.
However, defense lawyers disagreed with Ignacio. Chief defense lawyer Manuel Pamaran said the carpet could have been "given" by somebody to the ex-president, while his colleagues Prospero Crescini and Noel Malaya insinuated the carpet could have been "planted."
"How did (the prosecutors) know that it was Erap’s? Maybe it was given to him," Pamaran countered. "Was there any(thing) showing that (Estrada) owns it? The main question here is still the real ownership."
Crescini dismissed the carpet sticker as just a "piece of paper" that didn’t even have "stains" as proof the carpet had been in the house for a long time.
The lead defense lawyer also told reporters Enriquez indeed "rented the house" and that evidence of this could be verified with the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), though he added he was "not so sure about it."
Two other crucial pieces of evidence were found at the Boracay mansion: A "locator slip" for servants, which bore Enriquez’s name and an Oct. 26, 1999 class schedule for her daughter Ma. Jerika Larize. These items were found in the mansion’s maids’ quarters.
The discovery of these added pieces of evidence, prosecutors said, bolstered their position that the property belongs to Estrada and was occupied by Enriquez.
Justices Minita Chico-Nazario, Edilberto Sandoval and Teresita Leonardo-de Castro also made ABS-CBN reporter Mariton Pacheco swear before them that she was really the one who saw the carpet sticker bearing Estrada’s name.
The carpet sticker that bore Estrada’s name as the recipient of the delivery and was marked as an "exhibit for the prosecution".