Bugging alleged in trial against Estrada

By Amit Baruah

SINGAPORE, DEC. 21. Amid allegations that there had been ``erasures'' in confidential bank documents linked to the corruption trial against the Philippines President, Mr. Joseph Estrada, the country has been rocked by allegations of telephone tapping in the impeachment trial.

In a related development, reports from Manila said an alleged custodian of Mr. Estrada's ``illegal gambling'' proceeds had deposited ``bags of cash'' at the Equitable PCI Bank. In her testimony before the Senate today, Ms. Rosario Bautista, a branch manager at the Equitable PCI Bank, said Ms. Yolanda Ricaforte (the alleged custodian) opened the first of seven accounts with a deposit of half-a-million pesos ($10,000) in November 1999. Ms. Bautista said bank officials were surprised when Ms. Ricaforte returned three days later with 70 million pesos in cheques.

The bank manager was quoted as saying in the Senate that Ms. Ricaforte would walk into the suburban Manila bank with bags having old, big bills in thousands and hundreds. The witness testified at the impeachment trial that she was ``surprised by the amount'' of deposits and had asked her client where the money came from. Ms. Ricaforte told her that the money came from the sale of ``prime property''. Following a report in The Philippine Daily Inquirer that telephones of several Senators (acting as judges in the Estrada impeachment trial) were tapped, the national police chief said he would quit if the charges were true.

According to the report, the telephones of the Senators were tapped to find out how they might vote in the impeachment trial. However, the police chief, Mr. Panfilo Lacson, said he did not order the tapping of phones. ``I'm willing to put my job on the line...if any of my people committed the acts as described in the newspapers, then I think I have lost effective control over the task force and there is no reason to remain there a minute longer.'' Prosecutors, meanwhile, have claimed that there were ``erasures'' in the balance column of one of the statements submitted to the Senate by the Equitable PCI Bank. A cheque said to have been signed by ``Jose Valahalla'' or ``Jose Velarde'' and apparently looking similar to the signature of the President, had been described as a key piece of evidence before the bank documents relating to the account were opened.

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Section  : International
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