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.