The imbroglio over Champus/Tricare case

A spate of charges in Negros Occidental and Iloilo City prompted me to decide to continue with my reading into the case of Dr. Diogenes Dioniso, proprietor of CDMI Medical Clinic of Mandaluyong City.

The thing is that this incident has a bearing on the future of many physicians in Iloilo and Bacolod reportedly under investigation in the case of the alleged milking by Tricare purportedly for treating US veterans in the Philippines.

But that’s running ahead of local developments. First, there was the complaint filed by the Integrated Stevedoring and Arrastre Corp. against Pulupandan Mayor Magdaleno Peña. The complaint was filed by Luis Mondia Sr.

The charge: the Pulupandan mayor allegedly violated Republic Act 6713 or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials. Peña, Mondia contended, reportedly denied issuing a business permit for the company’s stevedoring and arrastre services.

It also accused Peña of grave misconduct or violation of Sec. 5 (a) of RA 6713.

Worse, according to Mondia, the Philippine Ports Authority rebuffed Peña’s alleged repeated refusal to grant ISACOR the permits by granting the firm the permit to operate the arrastre service at the Pulupandan port.

Second, criminal and administrative charges against 17 officials of Bacolod City and the Dynasty Agricultural Corp. were filed by a Barangay 12 resident. The respondents were Bacolod City Mayor Evelio Leonardia, members of the Sangganuiang Panglunsod, city legal officer Allan Zamora, city treasurer Anabelle Badajos, acting city engineer Teresita Guadalupe, city administrator Maphilindo Polvora and Dynasty Agricultural Corp. represented by Ester Lopez.

The complainant, Sarah Theresa Esguerra, claimed before the Ombudsman that the city government bought parcels of land in Barangay Felisa last July 25 for a solid waste disposal facility at the exorbitant price.

She alleged that on April 3, Leon Moya, vice president of Moya-Guanzon and Sons Farms, had offered to sell his 160,833-square-meter property in Cabug at P80 per square meter.

Instead, she claimed the city concentrated on buying the 70,000-square-meter DAC property for P340 per square meter. The DAC property, she claimed, is in the same area which was acquired by the city.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue zonal valuation classified the area as agricultural and valued it as P100 per square meter.

Polvora, chairman of the appraisal committee, said the zonal valuation of the BIR tagged P400 per square meter as the price of the property.

He added that the use of zonal valuation is designed only for tax purposes and not for the determination of the fair market value.

Be that as it may, the spate of complaints and other cases prompted me to review the Dr. Dioniso case because of its implications insofar as the extradition treaty of the US-Philippines is concerned and how the Wisconsin District Attorney’s Office disregarded it and asked for a warrant of arrest for Dioniso.

As submitted to me, the transcripts of case showed that Dr. Dioniso was accused by postal investigators in Wisconsin, Illinois only seven years after they had investigated him in Mandaluyong City.

Actually the case was filed before the Federal Court by the Wisconsin District Attorney’s Office. The court issued a warrant for his arrest.

Dr. Dioniso was arrested by US Marshals on March 9, 2008 at the Guam Airport and was immediately handcuffed and incarcerated in Hawaii, San Bernardino, California and ultimately in Wisconsin. He was held “incommunicado” for 15 days and not allowed to communicate with anyone, including his relatives or family. Neither was he allowed to get in touch with his counsel.

Later, Dr. Dioniso, according to Atty. Espiritu, was granted temporary liberty but given monitoring equipment and allowed only three hours per day outside his residence.

Certified copies of the transcript of records furnished me by Espiritu cited the fact that the investigators never officially informed the US Embassy in Manila that they were probing Dr. Dioniso.

Nor did they avail themselves of the extradition treaty between the United States and the Philippines executed on Nov. 13, 1994.

The treaty, Espiritu contended, enumerated the procedures to be undertaken by the parties on how to extradite an offender to the requesting country.

“There is no legal shortcut allowed by the treaty as to what the Wisconsin District Attorney’s Office had done in the case. They have no legal power to abrogate such a treaty and cannot substitute their belief and opinion that to avail of the treaty was futile due to the culture of corruption prevalent in the Philippines,” Espiritu said.

This was admitted by the District Attorney’s Office through its witness and under the pretext of “corruption” in the Philippines admitted openly in court during a hearing that they did not avail themselves of the extradition treaty.

The Filipino physician had not been afforded the chance to file his counter-affidavit nor informed of the nature of the charges against him. It was, Espiritu stressed, a violation of due process.

Besides, Espiritu expressed hope that the horror which Dr. Dioniso had undergone “will never again happen to other doctors similarly situated or any person for that matter.

He also presented to me a document to prove that the District Attorney’s Office of Wisconsin, Illinois, where the office of Tricare is located in the US, “will arrest several doctors in Western Visayas, particularly in Iloilo and Bacolod cities,” said the lawyer.

What made the case “serious” was the fact that the US lawmen violated the human rights of Dr. Dioniso and the Constitutions of both the United States and the Philippines.

This incident is something which, I hope the Department of Foreign Affairs should look into and lodge a protest with the US State Department.