JUSTICE Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II on Monday lashed out at Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña for threatening to file graft and disbarment cases against him for interfering in cases filed by the local government against SM and BDO, the mall giant and bank owned by tycoon Henry Sy.
Turning the tables on Osmeña, Aguirre said he had a sworn statement from someone in the Witness Protection Program that tagged the mayor as a “protector of drug lords.”
“We have an affidavit and a witness under the WPP [who is saying that he (Osmeña)] is on the payroll of drug lords,” Aguirre told reporters.
The Justice secretary said the witness surfaced last year, but he did not make it public immediately because he wanted to first verify the information.
“I did not reveal it because I’m still building the case. But the witness with the affidavit is there and I’m having it reviewed by the NBI [National Bureau of Investigation] and see if there could be some additional evidence,” Aguirre said.
He said once the case buildup concludes, the NBI would file charges against Osmeña.
Aguirre made the disclosure even as he denied the allegations hurled against him by Osmeña, saying the transfer of the cases filed by the Cebu City government against executives of SM Prime Holdings and BDO Unibank Inc. from the local prosecutor’s office to the DoJ was justified.
The Justice secretary dared Osmeña to just file the graft and disbarment cases against him.
“That is baseless. He should just file it instead of threatening me publicly,” he said.
Aguirre stressed that here was nothing irregular or anomalous in his order to transfer of the cases against SM and BDO executives from the Cebu prosecutor’s office.
“The conflict between BDO and Mayor Osmeña there in Cebu is very deep, so the respondents requested that the case be transferred because they could hardly expect fairness since the people there will favor the mayor,” he said.
“So what I did was to transfer the case here and assigned it to one of our prosecutors. But when I did that, it was within my power to transfer cases, which I always exercise,” he said.
Earlier, Osmeña said he would sue Aguirre for transferring the cases against BDO and SM.
In January last year, the mayor sued BDO’s officers over one branch’s alleged under-declaration of its gross annual revenue and falsification of gross sales in its business permit application for 2016. He sued them separately over a similar allegation against another branch.
He also filed a separate complaint against four SM officials in November 2016 over the alleged understatement of the size of one mall branch in Cebu City to cut tax obligations.
Also on Monday, Aguirre apologized for ordering an investigation into prosecutors who dismissed the drug complaint against Cebu businessman Peter Lim and self-confessed drug trader Kerwin Espinosa.
During the flag-raising ceremony in the Department of Justice, Aguirre said his recent order for the NBI to probe Assistant State Prosecutor Michael John Humarang and Aristotle Reyes was not intended to castigate them but to give them opportunity to clear themselves of any insinuations.
“I apologize to the prosecutors for causing the investigation because extraordinary incidents called for extraordinary measures,” Aguirre said.
Humarang and Reyes were the two members of the panel that conducted a preliminary investigation on the case and dismissed the charges of sale, administration, dispensation, trading, delivery and transportation of illegal drugs under the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act filed by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.
“We need this [NBI probe] just to show the higher-ups and the public that we’re not hiding anything here, that we decided on the case in accordance with the rules and our procedures,” the DoJ chief said.
He said this was his way of protecting the prosecutors and the DoJ as an institution.
Aguirre acknowledged that several prosecutors had already expressed concern that they would be investigated if they issued resolutions that go against the government.
He asked for understanding from prosecutors and personnel of the department that he had to strike down the resolution clearing Lim and Espinosa and apply the power of his office to automatically review dismissed drug charges.
“There are many sectors who criticize and target us… Even the President was misinformed [on the workings of the DoJ],” he said.
“After I recalled the dismissal and created a new panel, the issue should have died down but the attacks persisted,” Aguirre added.
He said striking down the dismissal would give the police time to submit more evidence to bolster their case against Lim, Espinosa and several others.
In the controversial resolution, the prosecutors junked the drug charges against Lim, Espinosa, convicted drug lord Peter Co, Marcelo Adorco, Max Miro, Lovely Impal, Ruel Malindagan, Jun Pepito and several others known only by their aliases.
The prosecutors said that the police heavily relied on the testimony of Adorco, which was inconsistent based on his three affidavits. They said the police failed to submit additional evidence to corroborate or support the claims of Adorco.
Aguirre earlier said the dismissal of the case should be a wake up call to the police to submit complete evidence before filing a complaint with the prosecutors.