PHILIPPINE NEWS SERVICE — FORMER Agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn Bolante may spend Christmas at the Senate if the senators decide to hold him “indefinitely” for allegedly not telling the truth concerning his involvement in a fertilizer fund scam.
Sen.Francis Pangilinan raised this possibility in reaction to Bolante’s complaint that the senators were “persecuting” him by accusing him of malversing the P728-million fertilizer allocation.
Pangilinan at the same time urged the Ombudsman to file a plunder case against Bolante for technical malversation of a multi-million peso public fund.
“He’d stay there indefinitely unless he purged himself of contempt by telling us the truth. Okey naman siya dito. Kung magtatagal, p’wedeng pag-usapan kung sa Pasay City jail o sa ibang lugar siya ikulong,” he said.
“It is self inflicted. Kaya siya nakakulong dahil sa kanyang sariling gawa. It’s only as indefinite as he chooses it to be. There’s no persecution,” Pangilinan said in a Senate media forum.
He added: “Kung ako sa kanya, mag-invoke na lang siya ng self-incrimination. Ang mahirap sumasagot siya pero nagsisinungaling naman. His testimony is not consistent with human experience.”
Meanwhile, Bolante has asked for privacy while in detention at a holding room at the Senate, said retired Maj. Gen.Jose Balajadia, Senate Sergeant-at- Arms. Bolante was arrested at around 9 p.m. but was only brought to the Senate past midnight since he requested first to see his family.
“They don’t want to be seen on television. They don’t want to be seen in newspapers and we will accede to their request. That’s how private they want to be right now,” Balajadia told mediamen.
Plunder
Pangilinan challenged Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez to prosecute Bolante for plunder.
He stressed that the investigations in aid of legislation both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives have “yielded enough evidence” to show that Bolante had committed technical malversation of funds when he distributed P100 million to other entities after 23 of the 181 beneficiaries decided to give up their allocation.
“As the so-called Protector of the People, what has the Ombudsman done to defend the interest of the public in this multi-million peso scandal? What is the status of its parliamentary investigation on the case?” Pangilinan asked.
The Ombudsman has yet to reach a conclusion in its preliminary investigation of the projects supposedly intended to assist farmers but which administration critics say ended up with the diversion of the fertilizer fund to the 2004 campaign chest of President Macapagal-Arroyo.
Pangilinan noted that a public officer who has amassed, accumulated or acquired ill-gotten wealth through a combination of or a series of misappropriation, conversion, misuse or malversation of public funds or raids on the public treasury qualifies for the crime of plunder.