Estrada knew his friend bribed official: Almadro

Estrada knew his friend bribed official: Almadro

MANILA (Reuters): A former Philippine stock exchange official
testified on Tuesday that President Joseph Estrada indicated that
one of his friends implicated in insider trading had bribed the
country's top securities regulator.

"I was shocked," Ruben Almadro, the former head of the
compliance group of the exchange, told Estrada's Senate
impeachment trial.

"Here I was facing the president of the republic, the chief
enforcer of the law, he was telling me that his friend had bribed
a public official and he did nothing to take action against the
bribe giver or the bribe taker."

Almadro, a prosecution witness in Estrada's trial on
corruption charges, was recounting his meeting with Estrada at
the presidential palace last year at the height of a stock market
scandal in which a businessman-friend of the president, Dante
Tan, was found prima facie guilty of price manipulation.

Estrada will be removed from office if convicted on any of the
charges against him, ranging from taking bribes from illegal
gambling syndicates to amassing unexplained wealth, betrayal of
public trust and culpable violation of the constitution.

A two-thirds vote by the 22-member Senate, which acts as an
impeachment court, is required to convict Estrada, who has
pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Almadro had investigated the sudden rise and fall in share
prices of gaming firm BW Resource Corp in 1999 while he was with
the stock exchange.

Almadro said he and another stock exchange official went to
the presidential palace in February last year to report to the
president on their investigations.

He said Estrada initially told them Tan was not a manipulator
but a victim of BW's price fluctuations.

Almadro added that after being told of Tan's alleged role in
price fixing, Estrada had said: "Dante told me that he had fixed
Yasay." Then Estrada made a gesture indicating that money had
been paid, he said.

Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Perfecto Yasay
also investigated the case. BW, which has now been renamed
Fairmont Holding Inc, rose some 5,000 per cent in 1999 before
collapsing in October that year.

Almadro said his investigation showed Tan and his associates
made a profit of 820 million pesos ($16 million) from BW's share
price surge.

At the trial's resumption on Tuesday, defense lawyers blocked
attempts by the prosecution to introduce what it called evidence
that Estrada, his wife and mistresses held bank accounts in
excess of his declared assets.

Prosecutors summoned Citibank Philippines' Vice-President
Victor Lim to the witness stand to try and pry out information
about assets linked to Estrada.

But Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario Davide, who is
presiding over the trial, upheld a defense objection that the
subpoena issued to the bank executive limited his testimony only
to certain accounts.

Prosecutor Oscar Moreno alleged that Estrada and his wife had
many accounts with Citibank, including savings and current
accounts, government securities investments and foreign deposits.

Three of Estrada's mistresses, including two former movie
actresses, also had many accounts with the bank, Moreno asserted.

Moreno said Lim would have confirmed such accounts existed.
The defense opposed the questioning of Lim on the alleged
accounts.

Lim later invoked bank secrecy laws when a senator asked him
to provide details of some of the accounts. Manila newspapers
have said Estrada has fathered several children by different
women since his days as a movie star in the 1950s. Estrada has
not denied the allegations.

The prosecution has said the existence of Estrada's previously
undisclosed accounts would prove he had assets far in excess of
those he declared in his financial statements, in violation of
anti-corruption laws.