How witnesses keep surfacing

There’s order in the chaos of Col. Vic Corpus’s delivery of witnesses to the Senate inquiry on narcopolitics. It’s in simply making the witnesses talk, then letting those whom they implicate come forward to talk too and implicate still others. If the AFP intelligence chief learned the trick from how the FBI busted the big Mafia families in the ’70s, he wouldn’t say. But that’s what happened in the case of two new witnesses, Remus Garganera and Police Officer-1 Jonathan Morales.

An earlier witness, Mary "Rosebud" Ong, had first implicated Garganera. In her testimony on the criminal rackets of PNP narcs, she said Garganera was a civilian aide of her ex-beau Supt. John Campos. The two, she swore, had participated in the kidnapping of Chinese drug lords for ransom and in selling the shabu confiscated from them. Two such kidnappings were of Chong Hiu Ming on Dec. 30, 1998, and of the family of Wong Kam Chong, Zeng Jia Xuan, Hong Zhen Qiao, Zeng Kang Fang and James Ong in late March 1999. Rosebud knew, for she and Campos had wiretapped Chong Hiu Ming for months before the abduction, as part of their work for the PNP Narcotics Group, and bought kilos of shabu from him as part of the racket. Moreover, Wong Kam Chong and relatives were kept in her condo at Villa Carolina, Pasay City. Rosebud implicated other police officers as well, among them Dir. Reynaldo Acop, Supt. Francisco Villaroman, Insp. Medel Poñe, and Officer Ritchie Watanabe. She described Poñe as the taga-tadtad (butcher) of hostages the group chose to liquidate, and Garganera as the bodegero (bagman) of Campos’s trade. In a radio interview, Rosebud appealed to those whom she had named to come forward and confirm her story "for the sake of truth and the country’s future."

Garganera’s initial reaction was one of fear. How can that woman link him? They had never liked each other. At one time during the long talks in 1999 for Wong Kam Chong to cough up ransom, they had a bitter quarrel during which Garganera flung a scotch-tape dispenser at Rosebud. That woke up Campos, to whom Rosebud cried for help. Campos beat her up in front of their kidnapping cohorts and victims, and Garganera left to stay at Campos’s house in Parañaque. A year later in May 2000 Garganera sought Campos’s help in landing a quiet job in his Negros Occidental home-province, hoping to live down his past. But when Rosebud spilled the beans, the press hounded Garganera at the Office of the Mayor of Sagay City. He contacted Campos, who told him to surrender to PNP provincial head Supt. Geary Barias, Campos’s former superior at the NarcGroup. Barias in turn advised him to deny all the accusations, which he did in a press conference. He later realized he had to tell the truth, if only to protect himself and his family from harm. He sent word to Corpus’s office that he needed protection. Upon arrival in Manila with his lawyer from Negros, he executed an affidavit.

Garganera has yet to testify in the Senate on Friday. His affidavit not only confirms many details of Rosebud’s account, he adds his own details. He narrates how he and Campos met through the latter’s ex-wife, and how they became close friends. He says Campos would often dine at his house and call his (Garganera’s) mom Nanay too. When he lost his job at an ice cream parlor at the international airport, Campos let him stay at the NarcGroup intelligence office. There, Campos would ask him to help count oodles of money – almost P500,000 every other night – that policemen delivered in satchels. He swore that well before Campos’s group abducted Chong Hiu Ming, they first brought in the drug lord’s assistant, Calvin Wong. He said the group kept Wong in Campos’s Paranaque house. One night, Poñe and other policemen arrived, wrapped Wong’s head and limbs with packing tape while whispering "Mamamasyal tayo sa Cavite (We’ll take a stroll in Cavite)," then took him away. Two weeks later, while watching TV news about a chopped-up body found in Cavite, Campos told him it must be Wong’s.

Another earlier witness, Rebecca Agana, had testified that while detained for drug pushing, another female inmate introduced her to NarcGroup’s Supt. Pancho Hubilla, Chief Insp. Ringo Licup and a certain Major Suan. The officers wanted them to sell drugs, she told the Senate.

Soon afterwards, the PNP brass started investigating the dozens of officers implicated by Rosebud and Agana. Soon afterwards, too, in late September, Police Officer-1 Jonathan Morales surfaced to tell his story.

Last Sept. 12 at 6 p.m., Morales said, his superior Hubilla called him to the NarcGroup intelligence section. There, Hubilla confronted him with cellphone and landline call records showing that he had been in frequent conversation with a Chief Insp. Rodrigo Bonifacio of the PNP-Intelligence Group. Hubilla accused Morales of spilling the beans to Bonifacio, who he said was close to former PNP chief Roberto Lastimoso. Hubilla said their former chief hated him and the new NarcGroup head because they had accused him in 1999 of coddling drug lords, so they now suspect that it was Lastimoso who put up Rosebud and others to testify. (In yesterday’s hearing, Superintendent Villaroman said that while he ascribes no malicious motive to Corpus’s exposé, he also wished to stress that the ISAFP chief and Lastimoso were PMA classmates.)

Morales said that Hubilla called in other NarcGroup officers and discussed in his presence how to contain the damage of his frequent talks with Bonifacio, He told them that the latter was his close friend, but that he told him nothing of their illegal activities. They didn’t believe Morales, and instead ordered him to type a statement into a computer on how to blame the Corpus exposé on Lastimoso and Bonifacio. They also disarmed him of his service pistol, but gave him no receipt for it. They finished the draft at 4 a.m. the next day. At 2:30 p.m., lawyer Chief Insp. Jesus Fernandez arrived to render Morales’s oath. Morales said he wanted to tell Fernandez that the statement was extracted under duress, but he feared he would not get out alive from the NarcGroup office.

A week later, he slipped out of the office and went straight to AFP, PNP and NBI officers whom he knew to be coordinating the fight against narcopolitics. He wrote a second affidavit and swore by it before State Prosecutor Emmanuel Velasco. He too will now testify at the Senate.

It’s not always smooth sailing in Corpus’s search for witnesses. When Poñe the alleged butcher’s name came up in Rosebud’s testimony, the police officer went to see Corpus at Camp Aguinaldo. They asked him if he wanted to confess, and he said he needed more time to think about it. Poñe left and reported to Villaroman, Corpus said. Days later, Poñe asked to meet with Corpus in a burger restaurant in Cabanatuan City. It was a trap. Unknown to Corpus, their conversation was being vedeotaped. Poñe was being hard. At one point, Corpus warned Poñe that if he refused to come in from the called, he would have to face the consequences. Corpus then noticed the camera and stood up; Poñe walked off to his companions. Corpus’s detractors went to town with that one, accusing him of forcing Poñe to turn state witness.

But where is Poñe now?

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