Ex-general faces 148 estafa raps

The game of the generals is up. After gathering dust for five years, a case will be revived this week for a P167-million scam by a retired general. This, just after the suspension of Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia for corruption and court martial orders on Maj. Gen. Ralph Flores for falsifying birth records.

The Ombudsman will indict retired Brig. Gen. Jose Ramiscal for an overpriced land purchase in 1996 as president of the AFP Retirement and Separation Benefits System. Ramiscal faces one case of graft and 148 counts of estafa. Co-accused are Capt. Perfecto Quilicot and lawyers Meinrado Enrique Bello and Manuel Satuito.

Ramiscal, earlier sued by the Ombudsman for other corruption cases, was set to leave for America yesterday to visit a sick relative. The antigraft agency blocked his departure with a letter to the Sandiganbayan about the imminent new charges.

The case is about the purchase by the RSBS from Vintage Builders Corp. of 600 hectares of land at the Laguna-Batangas border for a housing project. The barrio originally was owned by 148 land-title holders.

On investigation, the Ombudsman discovered that Vintage prodded the landowners to sell their lots to RSBS at a lower price under unilateral deeds of sale. Then, RSBS entered into bilateral deeds of sale with Vintage and the title holders for a higher price. It was this higher price that RSBS released to Vintage, for an overprice of P167 million.

The unilateral deeds of sale, with the lower price, were filed with the Register of Deeds in Tanauan, Batangas. The deeds also were presented to the BIR as the basis for computing the capital gains tax.

But the bilateral deeds of sale were kept in the RSBS vault at Camp Aguinaldo. These, according to investigators Wendell Barreras-Sulit, John Turalba and Warlito Galisanao, "were utilized as supporting document to the General Voucher processed at the RSBS for the disbursement of the higher price/consideration."

The case originally was recommended for filing in June by Special Prosecutor Dennis Villa-Ignacio and deputy Robert Kallos. It was delayed on motion of RSBS lawyer Bello, who claimed that the fund is not a state entity and thus the Ombudsman has no jurisdiction over him. Lawyer Satuito filed his own motion for reconsideration. Ramiscal, in his reply to the charges in June, claimed his role in the sale was merely ministerial, since the RSBS board of trustees had approved the purchase. On review, Marcelo did not buy their defense.

The RSBS operates like the SSS of private employees, the GSIS of state workers, and the OWWA of overseas workers. It deducts monthly contributions from soldiers’ pay as a lay-away plan for retirement. But the RSBS has not paid a single centavo in retirement benefit to soldiers since its establishment in the ’70s. Pleading insufficiency of actuarial funds, it has passed on the burden of retirement payments to the AFP, which in turn gets the money from annual Congress appropriations.

Investigators saw conspiracy in the overprice. The purchase was first approved by the RSBS investment section, then by the executive committee, and finally by the board of trustees – all within two weeks. From records, the purchase price was never mentioned in any of the approvals.

"Considering the enormous amount involved," probers said, "we find it strange that the fair market value was not thoroughly discussed by the committees before the recommendation for payment was approved. Significantly, the Status Disposition Form mentioned a Transfer Certificate of Title in the name of RSBS, yet nobody bothered to ask how and under what contract the titles were issued, at least to know the true value of the property bought." All the accused showed in their defense was a memo of understanding between RSBS and Vintage, as consolidator of the 148 parcels of land.

Ramiscal and his coaccused claimed that Vintage advanced the money for the land, then turned around and sold it to RSBS. But the Ombudsman noted that records belie this. The payment contract to the 148 landowners stated a 30-percent downpayment from RSBS upon signing of conditional deeds of sale, with balance payable upon execution of the bilateral deeds.

The Ombudsman ordered the investigation of 17 other officers on RSBS, Vintage and First Integrated Finance Corp., which also served as land consolidator. Marcelo approved the recommendation to dismiss the charges against the 148 landowners, but without prejudice to reviving these if evidence surfaces of their complicity in the fraud. The charge sheet is one inch thick, but became two inches because of the 148 case titles listed.

Two weeks ago Marcelo ordered the suspension of retired Marine general Edgardo Espinosa, now serving as head of Manila’s Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei. Espinosa was implicated in an overpriced purchase of helmets during his military stint.

Marcelo will also investigate how the son and wife of suspended General Garcia were able to whisk $100,000 each out of the Manila airport on Dec. 19 and 17 undetected by Customs personnel. Mrs. Garcia declared her cash upon entry in the US, but her son was held by US Customs for sneaking in his money, which started the investigation on the general’s hidden wealth.

Although Garcia’s classmate at the military academy, Flores’s case is unrelated. Still unexplained was how the latter altered his birth records to allow him to stay in the service up to March 2005 instead of retiring at age 56 in March 2002.

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