Mikey returns but will leave again shortly

Presidential son and Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel "Mikey" Arroyo quietly returned to the country from self-exile yesterday morning on a Philippine Airlines flight from San Francisco, California.

A short announcement from his office at the House of Representatives said he flew home on PAL flight PR 115, which touched down at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport’s Terminal II at around 4 a.m., to attend the 31st birthday celebration of his brother Diosdado, or "Dato," yesterday.

It also said his wife Angela would celebrate her own birthday today with close relatives.

The presidential son will be returning to San Francisco "in the next few days," the announcement said.

However, before leaving, Arroyo plans to visit his Pampanga district to meet with constituents "to ensure delivery of public services and assistance to them."

Arroyo, together with his family, and First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo left the country more than two months ago at the height of the jueteng controversy. They went into exile amid accusations that they had received millions in jueteng money and were protecting jueteng operators — allegations that they denied.

The Arroyos own at least two residential-commercial buildings in downtown San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in the world.

During the Senate’s Jose Pidal inquiry in late 2003, Sen. Sergio Osmeña III obtained San Francisco property documents showing that then Sen. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and husband Jose Miguel acquired the two buildings for Jose Ignacio "Iggy" Arroyo, brother of the President’s husband.

Osmeña, however, did not believe that Iggy Arroyo, now a Negros Occidental congressman, owned the expensive properties, claiming the real owners are the Arroyo couple.

In the course of the Pidal probe, opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who had accused the First Gentleman of hiding about P260 million in allegedly ill-gotten funds using the false name "Jose Pidal" and three friends as dummies, came out with photocopies of Iggy Arroyo’s income tax returns before 1996.

The returns showed that the President’s husband’s brother paid no more than P14,000 in income tax.

Last April, when House members filed their statements of assets and liabilities and Iggy Arroyo declared his net worth at nearly P300 million, Lacson asked the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to investigate Arroyo for possible tax evasion.

The BIR, under resigned Commissioner Guillermo Parayno, had sent the Negros Occidental congressman a notice that he would be placed under audit. Apparently, nothing has happened to Parayno’s initiative since he quit.

Arroyo had said he was ready to explain the huge discrepancy between his assets today and his income tax payments in the mid-1990s. — Jess Diaz, Rainier Allan Ronda