Erap, Ping, Fuentebella tagged as conspirators in US spy plot

Former President Joseph Estrada and two other prominent Filipino opposition politicians were named as the alleged conspirators in a plot to gather intelligence information from a suspected spy in the United States.

An ABS-CBN report said US Assistant Attorney Karl Buch has identified Estrada, Sen. Panfilo Lacson and Camarines Sur Rep. Arnulfo Fuentebella as part of the conspiracy to gather information from Filipino-American intelligence analyst Leandro Aragoncillo.

Buch publicly named the three officials as "unindicted co-conspirators" of Aragoncillo, a former intelligence analyst of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and White House accused of passing secrets to opposition politicians in the Philippines.

Buch made the disclosure before Senior US District Judge William Walls during a hearing of the espionage case of Aragoncillo and former Philippine police senior superintendent Michael Ray Aquino in Newark, New Jersey.

Officials said the investigation on the spy ring has widened after FBI agents took custody of former police colonel Cesar Mancao as a material witness.

Mancao, who worked with Aquino in the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) headed by Lacson and Estrada, is expected to be brought before a grand jury in Newark. He had posted a $75,000 bail for his temporary liberty.

Estrada and Lacson have previously admitted getting information from both defendants in the case.

But it was the first time that Fuentebella, who served as Speaker of the House of Representatives following the ouster of Estrada in 2001, was publicly mentioned during the hearing as among the alleged participants in the espionage plot.

Estrada, on the other hand, expressed his amusement over reports naming him as one of the conspirators in the US spy ring.

"Those copies (supposed intelligence reports) were just sent to my website. Anybody can send just anything there," he said.

Estrada argued the information cannot be made classified, pointing out the same were US Embassy reports that also came out in The STAR and The Daily Tribune.

Estrada said he even showed some of the reports to presidential chief of staff Michael Defensor and National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales for their evaluation in separate visits to his rest house in Tanay, Rizal.

The former leader admitted though meeting with Aragoncillo when the former FBI analyst visited the country twice.

The ABS-CBN report, meanwhile, said Mark Berman, Aquino’s defense counsel, had sought permission from the court to secure the deposition of the three Filipino officials on a videotape and play it before a grand jury.

Berman argued that critical to Aquino’s defense are depositions of witnesses who "are unlikely to voluntarily travel to the United States."

"If these three individuals testify truthfully they will exculpate the defendant (Aquino)," Berman said.

Berman claimed Aquino became an "unwitting pawn who may have passed information but did not know it was classified."

Buch, however, opposed Berman’s motion for its failure to confirm if the testimonies are material to the case, or the reasons why the witnesses would not make the trip to the US.

In a motion filed with the court, Buch described Estrada as Aquino’s godfather and Lacson as his longtime mentor.

Estrada, however, expressed his reluctance to make a deposition on behalf of Aquino and Aragoncillo.

"How can I help them? I will just tell them that I was given copies of those reports through my website," he said.

Lacson, on the other, took interest in giving his deposition for Aquino as "a long time friend and fellow Filipino."

The opposition senator and former national police chief reiterated though that the information he received was "harmless and were not confidential in nature."

Lacson said the three of them were never indicted because the prosecution knew it would be difficult to involve them in the spy case against Aquino and Aragoncillo.

The US judge then gave Berman a month to bolster his argument that the depositions would materially affect the case. But he warned Berman that even if he approves the travel to the Philippines, he would not allow Aquino to go back.

"I will not permit him to leave the country," the US judge said.

Aquino has been named as a conduit between Aragoncillo and the opposition politicians in the Philippines. He was charged for conspiring to pass classified information and acting as an unregistered foreign agent. The former Filipino police officer has been jailed without bail since September.

Aragoncillo, on the other hand, was a former US Marine who worked in the offices of Vice Presidents Al Gore and Dick Cheney. He later took a job at the FBI as intelligence analyst at the Fort Monmouth Information Technology Center.

It was there when he allegedly downloaded 101 sensitive intelligence documents on several topics, among which included analysis of the political situation in the Philippines.

Aragoncillo is reportedly negotiating a plea deal with the prosecutors to lower his sentence. — With Marichu Villanueva, Marvin Sy