Garcia surrendered assets long seized

How can you give away something you no longer possess? This question arises about the P135-million loot that Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia surrendered under his recent thorny plea bargain. For it turns out that the real estate, bank deposits and, vehicles comprising the amount already were in Sandiganbayan hands since six years back.

In November 2004 the anti-graft court seized 11 business, home and farm lots in the Philippines. These were in Iloilo, Guimaras and Batangas provinces, and Baguio City. Some were in the name of Garcia, others jointly with his wife Clarita’s, the rest with sons Ian Carl, Juan Paolo and Timothy Mark’s, all unemployed then.

Also taken by the court were 12 peso and dollar accounts in five banks. The deposits too were in the names of Garcia or in tandem with the wife and the sons. So were seven vehicles, and shares of stock in a corporate plantation, a resort, and a care home.

The Anti-Money Laundering Council got a separate order from the Manila regional trial court to freeze basically the same set of assets. This was on request of the Ombudsman, to prevent the withdrawal of savings and time deposits.

The following year US authorities took hold of a plush condo in Trump Place, Park Avenue, New York City. It was registered under Clarita and Timothy Mark. Frozen as were were a couple of dollar accounts in their names.

Officers swiftly executed the garnishments of Philippine assets on orders of the Sandigan 4th division. It was where the Ombudsman’s case for civil forfeiture had been assigned. Garcia’s plundering was exposed (in The STAR) in October 2004. At once he and his family tried to withdraw various amounts from the Bank of Philippine Islands, Banco de Oro, Planters Development Bank, Land Bank, and Armed Forces and Police Savings and Loans Association Inc. Sheriff Edgardo Urieta, with deputies Reynaldo Melquiades, Romulo Barrozo and Manuel Torio, raced against time combing the country for Garcia assets. From progress reports, now parts of court records, it appears that the family was able to cash some checks for millions of pesos before the sheriffs could serve the seizure orders. There were instances of certain persons trying to cover up the encashment or delay the serving of garnishment.

US marshals froze the New York condo and bank accounts on request of the Ombudsman under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty. That was after it filed in April 2005 a non-bailable case of plunder against the general, a comptroller under five Armed Forces chiefs. The Sandigan 2nd division separately is trying the criminal rap.

Ombudsman investigators in 2005 had identified another condo in New York City and a house in Ohio as part of Garcia’s ill-gotten wealth. In cutting a plea deal with Garcia in December 2010, special prosecutors claimed that the P303-million figure in the plunder rap was bloated. Instead, they insisted, the amount was only P135 million. As proof, they cited the second condo that happened to be only under lease to Timothy, and the Ohio home registry under someone else’s name.

The discrepancies were not only between the Ombudsman in 2005 and the special prosecutors in 2010. The prosecutors’ listings of Garcia assets today also do not jibe with those of the court sheriffs’ in 2004. Noticeably in the sheriffs’ garnishment reports but not in Garcia’s surrendered assets were two houses and lots in Quezon City.

Still, the basic question is how the plea bargain in the plunder rap could affect the forfeiture case. This is because the assets that Garcia ceded to the government, to escape life sentencing for plunder, are mostly also in the forfeiture. Non-bailable plunder is a capital offense that needs proving beyond reasonable doubt. Forfeiture depends only on evidence of possession of assets beyond the regular income of a government official.

Prosecutors and Garcia agreed in February 2010 struck a bargain to plead guilty to lesser offenses of bribery and money laundering. This was after a special division of five justices denied Garcia bail, given the prosecution’s strong evidence of criminal acts.

The Sandigan 2nd division approved the plea bargain in May 2010. Then, in November, it ordered the transfer to the government of the P135 million assets. The AMLC had to tell the Manila court to unfreeze the assets because of the Sandigan wishes.

Critics denounce the plea bargain for coming too late, after the prosecution finished presenting its case. They also say it is unnecessary because the prosecutors also have shown proof in the forfeiture trial of Garcia’s ownership of the unexplained wealth.

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If you have a bad experience dealing with government employees, shoot them. With your phone video, I mean, not with a gun. Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leeM3rwxsZI.

The clip shows how passport renewing at the main office of the Department of Foreign Affairs has turned from bad to worse. It’s all because ornery state employees do not think of ways to ease the long queues inside the humid hall. Full of their inefficient selves, they cannot even devise work shifts so that they won’t all have to leave their posts for lunch at the same time.

It’s not the fault of the person at the topmost but of the mulish staff. They simply won’t change, administration after administration. So just shoot and shame them.

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