Goodbye to all thatTuesday, 07 02, 2002There are things that are just not done by governments, one of which
is for a government to breach security rules and misrepresent a meeting
between counterparts and without the other's knowledge and consent. But it appears that in the case of the visit of National Bureau of Investigation
(NBI) Director Reynaldo Wycoco to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) officials a month ago, all caution was thrown to the wind. From reports, not only was the meeting misrepresented. It was also filmed
surreptitiously, which results in a serious breach of trust and confidence
between counterparts and one which will be difficult to recover. Yet the NBI, under Wycoco, took a big risk in leaking this out to the
media, obviously to generate public perception that indeed, Malacañang's
No. 1 political foe, opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson, has bank accounts
in the US as charged by the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the NBI. This is not even a criminal offense. That the meeting was misrepresented was evident in the fact that the
video shown publicly was heavily spliced, and made to appear that the
meeting's focus was on the alleged Lacson's bank accounts and the millions
stashed in them, when the meeting between counterparts was said to have
been arranged for discussion of the computerization of the NBI, with the
questions on the Lacson bank accounts posed by Wycoco as an aside. meeting to make Lacson appear guilty, ironically, the FBI officer, Kyle
Latimer, was caught on video saying that while there are some two to four
bank accounts identified with Lacson, the amounts in them were nowhere
near the millions of dollars being bruited about. The truth is, if Lacson did have the millions in these accounts in the
US, as claimed by the DoJ, the NBI and the military intelligence chief,
Col. Victor Corpus, the banks would have had alerted the concerned agencies
in the US of the huge amounts deposited by one Panfilo Lacson, which report
would have been quickly passed on to the Philippine government and for
which the appropriate charges against the senator would have been pressed
by the Arroyo administration. The fact alone that the question of the so-called Lacson bank accounts
and the amounts in them was asked by Wycoco, and the answer given by Latimer,
already serve as an indication that, up to that time, Wycoco had absolutely
nothing on Lacson, despite the NBI chief's earlier statements he had obtained
an FBI report attesting to the "huge" dollar deposits as shown in the
bank records, the amount of which, Wycoco then claimed, was enough to
charge Lacson with plunder. And what information was Wycoco given by the FBI official, if not the
information that the bank accounts Lacson held did not contain amounts
anywhere the millions being claimed. Despite this information, Wycoco, as well as Justice Secretary Hernando
Perez, who really should know better, insists on creating the impression
the government has the evidence from the US Justice department and the
FBI that would pin down Lacson on plunder or perjury. With such "damaging
evidence" against the senator, the DoJ and the NBI still have not made
up their minds as to what crime they will charge Lacson with? And even
more ridiculous, to this day, they are still scrounging around for evidence
against Lacson, to the extent of having his alleged "mansion" as proof. The "mansion" which was quickly discovered to be the wrong manse and
therefore not belonging to the senator is also another strong indication
the NBI and the DoJ cannot be trusted by their foreign counterparts to
utilize whatever information they share in the manner they should be utilized
— as an instrument of justice, not as an instrument of political persecution
and witchhunt. What Mrs. Arroyo, Perez and Wycoco have not realized is that in their
obsession to destroy Lacson and his chances to attain the presidency in
2004, they destroyed a very important relationship they once held with
the FBI and the Attorney General's Office. It is hardly information on
Lacson that is important in such a relationship. There are many more important
pieces of information that the Philippine government needs to keep itself
on its toes, on many fronts, but which the Arroyo administration will
now be virtually denied, because it has been not only found, but proved
to be untrustworthy. And this relationship has been destroyed, simply because of the administration's
obsession to be rid of a political opponent. It is no different from saying that for want of a horse, a whole kingdom
was lost.
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