RP graft sleuths focus on Ejercito

RP graft sleuths focus on Ejercito

MANILA (AFP): Investigators looking into alleged corruption by deposed president Joseph Estrada said on Thursday they were turning their attention to his wife, Luisa Ejercito, after discovering massive withdrawals from one of her bank accounts.

Government ombudsman Aniano Desierto said Ejercito, who is running for the senate elections in May, withdrew 109 million pesos ($2.3 million) from a branch of Citibank NA on Feb. 1, shortly before the internal revenue bureau froze her family's accounts.

Deputy ombudsman Margarito Gervacio said Ejercito could be charged along with her husband for perjury for not listing this wealth in a joint statement in 1999 when the couple declared 35.9 million pesos in assets.

Under a law on ill-gotten wealth, if a government official is shown to have far more wealth than he could have legimitately earned, the burden of proof would be on him to establish that the money is not ill-gotten, Gervacio said.

"As we could not determine where this money came from, considering the fact that this is grossly disproportionate to the legitimate income ... the presumption of the law is that this is ill-gotten," Gervacio said.

The ombudsman's office obtained the bank records through subpoenas that also covered the accounts held by other family members and his acknowledged mistresses.

Gervacio said Ejercito could theoretically be charged alongside her husband, for "plunder" referring to massive graft. This is a non-bailable offense punishable by death.

However, a prosecutor in Estrada's aborted corruption trial in Senate said Ejercito was due to be named as a co-respondent with her husband on the alleged diversion of funds from the government sweepstakes agency to one of her charitable foundations.

Estrada was impeached for allegedly embezzling state funds and taking bribes from gambling bosses, but prosecutors failed to win a conviction that would have thrown him out of office.

Gervacio said the former first lady was already listed as a co-respondent along with Estrada in some of the six corruption cases that they were ready to file.

The Supreme Court earlier this week barred prosecutors from filing cases against Estrada for a month to give the tribunal time to decide on his petition seeking presidential immunity from suits.

Desierto said Estrada's mistresses were not yet listed as co- respondents in the cases but that there was evidence some of them had millions of pesos deposited in their accounts.

The mistresses are considered as "persons that might be the recipients of the (ill-gotten) assets," Desierto said.

Ejercito, a psychiatrist, had engaged in charity work when her husband was president.

In January, Estrada was toppled by a popular uprising spurred by a growing corruption scandal and the apparent collapse of his corruption trial in Senate.

Earlier this month, Ejercito announced she was running for the Senate on a pro-Estrada ticket in order to redeem her husband's name.

Many analysts say she will benefit in the polls from her image as a martyred wife who stood by her husband even while he admitted to keeping a string of mistresses.