2 Arroyo co-accused in police custody

MANILA, Philippines - Two former Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office officials, who were accused along with former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo with plunder for the alleged misuse millions of PCSO funds, have surrendered to the police.

Senior Superintendent Joel Coronel, head of the National Capital Region Police Office - Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, said former chairman of the board of directors Sergio Valencia and former PCSO budget and accounts manager Benigno Aguas are now under police custody.

Coronel said that the two former PCSO officials surrendered to the CIDG in Camp Crame at around 6 p.m. Thursday, hours after the warrants for their arrest were issued by the Sandiganbayan First Division.

He said that the two officials are now detained at the Philippine National Police' Custodial Center in Camp Crame.

Valencia and Aguas were among the nine former PCSO and Commission on Audit (COA) officials charged with plunder for the alleged misuse of P366 million intelligence funds of the government's numbers game agency.

The other accused were former PCSO general manager and vice chairman Rosario Uriarte; former board members Manuel Morato, Jose Taruc V, Raymundo Roquero, and Ma. Fatima A.S. Valdez; former COA chairman Reynaldo Villar; and Nilda Palaras of COA’s Intelligence Confidential Funds Fraud Audit Unit.

Former president and now Pampanga Rep. Arroyo has been served with the warrant of arrest and was held in hospital arrest at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City, where she was detained for nearly seven months for a separate charge of electoral sabotage in connection with the alleged rigging of results of the 2007 senatorial election in Maguindanao.

4 are out of country

Meanwhile, Coronel said that they are now coordinating with other law enforcement agencies and the Bureau of Immigration (BI) to confirm reports that aside from Taruc, three more of the accused have left the country.

Coronel declined to name the three former PCSO officials.

The BI on Thursday said that Taruc left the country last July 19 on board a Cathay Pacific flight. The former PCSO official's destination was unknown and the bureau has no records of him returning to the Philippines.

Taruc left the country only days after the Office of the Ombudsman filed the plunder charge before the Sandiganbayan.

The National Bureau of Investigation said that it will tap the International Police Organization to locate Taruc.

Several teams have also been deployed by the CIDG to serve the warrants of arrest against the other accused in the plunder case.

Coronel said that they are now coordinating with the lawyers of Roquero, who has sent his surrender feeler.