P172M of fertilizer fund seen as laundered

P172M of fertilizer
fund seen as laundered
Bank accounts link Joc Joc to foundations

Malaya By AMADO P. MACASAET

THE Court of Appeals has affirmed a decision of a Makati regional trial court ordering the freeze of 70 accounts amounting to P172 million which the Anti-Money Laundering Council has said "were found to be a part of a related web of accounts connected with the infamous fertilizer fund scam."
Involved in the alleged money laundering are Jocelyn "Joc Joc" Bolante, former undersecretary of agriculture, Livelihood Corp., two foundations and two officials of Livecor.
The resolution, promulgated Oct. 21, 2008, was penned by associate justice PA Abarintos of the CA’s First Division and concurred in by Conrado M. Vazquez Jr., presiding justice, and Lucas P. Bersamin, associate justice. It was a unanimous decision.
The records of the CA show that in just 15 months, Livelihood Corp. transferred P172 million to a foundation called Molugan.
The Anti-Money Laundering Council discovered that the accounts of the people involved are practically all closed.
The CA resolution states that Bolante, then undersecretary of agriculture, had 23 accounts. Twenty of these accounts were kept in the Bank of the Philippine Islands.
Initial investigation made by the Anti-Money Laundering Council "disclosed that questionable accounts were made involving the accounts of Livelihood Corp. (Livecor), Molugan Foundation, the Assembly of Gracious Samaritans Foundation (AGS), Samuel Bombeo, and Ariel Panganiban."
The resolution does not mention where the money in the accounts of Livecor came from. It transferred twice from its account P40 million and P38 million to the account of Molugan.
All told, Livecor transferred in a 15-month period a total of P172 million to the Molugan account.
(An Internet search yielded no mention of Molugan Foundation or Assembly of Gracious Samaritans except in news reports relating to the frozen accounts.)
There has been dizzying series of fund transfers as shown by the resolution which states that on, April 2, 2004 using the same Livecor transferred P40 million to the account of AGS.
In turn, again on April 30, 2004, a similar amount of P38 million was transferred by AGS to Molugan.
The CA affirmed the findings of the executive judge of Makati regional trial court.
The findings, based on submissions of the AMLC, also state that on April 30, 2004, "Livecor again transferred P20 million to Molugan; that on May 23, 2004 P39,800,000 and on July 19, 2005, another P39.8 million were transferred by Livecor to Molugan."
The CA resolution noted that "during the relevant period (about 15 months in 2004 and part of 2005), Bolante was the acting chairman of Livecor; Samuel Bombeo, on the other hand, was president, treasurer, secretary of Livecor.
The resolution of the CA noted that Bombeo was also the sole signatory for the checking accounts of Livecor, Molugan, AGS, Samuel Bombeo and Ariel Panganiban which are related to the infamous fertilizer fund scam.
Thus, the Makati Court allowed the AMLC to freeze the various accounts, all 70 of them, including those of former undersecretary Bolante.
The CA resolution confirmed the findings of the Makati Court that the series of transfers are "part of the related web of accounts used in the fertilizer scam and were materially linked to the initially discovered accounts of Livecor, Molugan, AGS, Samuel Bombeo and Panganiban.
Bolante sought the lifting of the freeze of his accounts saying that the petition of the AMLC did not have basis.
He told the court that in his memorandum-manifestation "that the suspicious transactions… occurred sometime in April 2004 up to July 2005" when he was not its acting chairman.
He also said he ceased to be a member of the board of Livecor as of Feb. 1, 2003.
Livecor’s own lawyer, Adonis Edgard Angelo Macam, attested to Bolante’s claim.
That’s 14 months prior to the initial transaction of Livecor.
Bolante also said in relation to his account with the PNB that in six board meetings from 14 Sept. 2001 to Oct. 25, 2002, he "merely presided as officer and did not act as chairman.
The CA debunked Bolante’s claim and declared that "the arguments advanced by Livecor and Jocelyn Bolante that the latter was not chairman of the board of Livecor and that he ceased to be a member of the board of Livecor effective Feb. 1, 2003, more than 14 months prior to the initial transactions…of Livecor…is contradicted by the result of the investigation conducted by the result of the investigation conducted by the by the secretariat’s compliance and investigation staff of the anti-money laundering council which disclosed that the questionable transactions were made involving the accounts the of Livercor, Molugan, the assembly of gracious Samaritans, Samuel Bombeo and Ariel Panganiban."
The CA declared it believes "…that these hundreds of millions of pesos was the money reportedly to have been released to the Department of Agriculture upon the request of then undersecretary Bolante allegedly to fund the governments Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (GMA) to help alleviate the plight of the Filipino farmers all over the country."
The CA also declared that the report of a Senate committee "confirmed that said program resulted in a fertilizer fund scam, the brains and implementor of which is Jocelyn Bolante."