Report to Malacañang details trail of $2-M

Australian authorities admit that they indefinitely closed the Manila embassy after receiving a report from "a local source" about terror attacks. It had nothing to do with the agriculture office’s ban on Australian beef imports with the discovery of anthrax on one cow in a herd in the parched outbacks.

Australia is reeling from its worst drought in a century, and an agriculture official says this could explain the anthrax outbreak. Then again, maybe it doesn’t, but that has no bearing on the security jitters.

Talk in intelligence circles is that an officer shared findings with the Australian embassy, and thus triggered the reaction that has so angered National Security Adviser Roilo Golez and Foreign Sec. Blas Ople. The two froth that the Australians did not bother to verify the digest with them.

The same report could have reached the European Commission Office, which sits in the same Makati building as the Australian embassy. It then spread to the Canadian embassy three blocks away. Thus, the closure of those offices, too.

As Golez and Ople plug the "leak" – was it a moonlighting officer? – the National Police will have to try harder convincing the envoys that it can secure them. No amount of promises can allay fears. Not with the way embassy officers have been kidnapped the past two years. The police may have protected the crowds at cemeteries from terror attacks on All Saints-Souls Days. But it came after a bus was bombed in Quezon City.

The Australian embassy also has advised its nationals not to travel to Manila if they don’t need to. Meantime, Canberra officials frantically are securing public houses. The tourism office must be seething again that it can’t issue warnings to Filipinos travelling Down Under the same way Australia does to its citizens.

It’s so unfair. No travel warnings were ever issued while Irish Republican Army bombs were exploding all over London a two decades ago. But then, it’s a matter of perception. Foreigners trusted Scotland Yard back then to stop the bombers. In Manila, foreigners and Filipinos alike don’t trust the police.

The uproar may have a happy ending in the form of a real estate deal, though. The Australian, Canadian and European Union embassies are in undersecured buildings, unlike the heavily-guarded compounds of US and Japan diplomats. Visitors come and go to the other business offices in those buildings, and thus pose a security threat to the embassies. But the foreign agencies are not about to close forever. They ‘ve moved some desks temporarily to five-star hotels. Word is that the diplomats are looking for new, better-secured locations. Some building owners will be smiling after a few weeks, when Australian, Canadian and European Union envoys find new offices.

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The accusations between Rep. Mark Jimenez and Justice Sec. Nani Perez was, up to this point, still in the realm of public opinion. "Who’s telling the truth?" radio and television interactive programs blared. Is it the "fugitive from US justice" who ran for Manila congressman to avoid extradition that Perez is working on? Or is it the Cabinet member who admitted that he did see his banker-friend Ernest Escaler in Hong Kong on the very day Jimenez claims he wired $2 million to Coutts Bank branch there?

But Escaler has fled to the US after his name was dragged into the exchange, the same way Piatco’s mysterious Leongson fellow disappeared at the height of the Senate hearings on NAIA-3’s onerous contract. That changes everything. Can flight be construed as guilt in this case?

Did Escaler get wind of details of a report sent to Malacañang about the $2 million? The report states that Escaler owns the Coutts account No. H013706 where Jimenez claims he wired the "extorted" amount. It says he opened the account on Nov. 25, 1998 using his passport No. ZZ044201 as identification, but closed it on July 13, 2001.

Several transactions are mentioned in the report. Not $2 million, but $1,999,965 was sent on Feb. 26, 2001 from Jimenez’s account in Trade and Commerce Bank, Cayman Islands. On Mar. 6, $1 million was transferred to a private bank in Singapore with account No. 348118. on June 16, a fresh

$1,495,000 was deposited to the Coutts account from Golden Profits Ltd., via Standard Charter Bank in New York.

From thereon, it was all withdrawals. On May 23, $700,000 was moved to the Singapore private bank account No. 348118. Another $200,000 was sent to Escaler’s account in Manila. And a bank draft for $250,000 was made payable to Ramon C. Arceo, reportedly Perez’s brother-in-law.

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Speaking of Piatco, five congressmen were howling the whole afternoon yesterday when President Gloria Arroyo declared the mother agreement and its amendments and supplements null and void. These were the same congressmen who called presidential adviser Gloria Tan Climaco an upstart for reviewing the contract that they already had claimed was valid.

As the congressmen now train their guns on Mrs. Arroyo, the Senate is preparing its own findings from the Blue-Ribbon Committee inquiry. Sen. Joker Arroyo, the committee chairman, has said the more he studies the deal, the more he smells the stink. Opposition leader Edgardo Angara has said that one onerous provision would void the contract – and there are 27 questioned insertions. If the Senate upholds Malacañang’s findings, what would the five congressmen say – that they are correct and all the rest are stupidly wrong? Aw, c’mon.

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Two reactions to a Filipino inventor’s solution to harmful aromatics and benzene in fuel (Gotcha, 27 Nov. 2002) are so interesting I must share them with readers.

The first is from Louie Tordillo, who has worked for a big oil firm in Singapore, Canada and the US. He says the inventor’s readiness to provide alternatives to a steep fuel price increase is "commendable but lacking in substance." The oil industry operates like most other companies in the world. Their models rest on proven technologies from which new products spring. "If an inventor finds a new idea that is economical, it is his duty to propose this to one of the oil firms," Tordillo says. "Start with a pilot project to be funded by either a private or public agency – as a venue to prove the idea. Entice, perhaps, one of the oil firms to become a partner. If a proposal is presented in businesslike manner, any company will open its door to the idea. More so if it will generate revenues."

Tordillo is right. Inventors can’t go on distrusting the system, say, of patents, and suspecting that all big firms are out to steal their ideas. They can be full of ideas but lacking in managerial and marketing savvy. They’ll need a financial partner to handle these.

Then again, there’s also the sad experience of Mel Reyes with a government that "plays dumb" to Filipino inventions that can clean the air. Reyes had tested an additive to the gasoline of highly polluting two-stroke motorcycles. A big tricycle maker lent him a brand-new unit, a used one, and a "blow-by." The result: the additive eliminated more than 90 percent of the pollutants. Yet the government ignored the findings and insists on phasing out two-stroke engines in favor of four-stroke. "Could it be because there’s no money to be made from additives to clean fuel," Reyes wonders, "while business dictates a shift to four-stroke because of hefty profits?"

Additives have long been a solution to vehicle emissions. It would be harsh for the government to force thousands of tricycle owners out of job in the name of the Clean Air Act. More so if additives readily areavailable.

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Catch Sapol ni Jarius Bondoc, Saturdays, 8 a.m., on DWIZ (882-AM).

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