The Arroyo show

Welcome to the biggest three-ring circus the Philippines has ever seen. Three members of the Arroyo family seem to be taking turns in selling their different stories to an incredulous public, but may find that whatever they’re selling, the Filipino people aren’t buying. The most notable of the three Arroyos, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, delivered two big lies in her time as fabricator-in-chief. First, after saying she would not run for president in 2002, she later decided that she would indeed run. After that, she owned up to an illicit phone call to a Commission on Elections commissioner, for which she told the Filipino people in a televised speech, “I am sorry.”

The former president has stayed relatively quiet since leaving office and winning as a Pampanga representative. But that has not stopped the big show—now featuring bigger and bolder lies. In center stage, former First Gentleman Mike Arroyo has been accused of forcing the sale of two secondhand helicopters to the Philippine National Police as brand-new. The Senate blue ribbon committee has been looking into the unusual case of the two helicopters and during the hearings, Lionair Inc. president Archibald Po claimed that Mike bought the two Robinsons R-44 Raven Is for Gloria’s 2004 presidential campaign and pushed for their sale to the PNP. Po was only one of several witnesses linking Mike to the choppers.

“Let me put it on record that I do not own those subject helicopters sold to the Philippine National Police,” Mike said in a statement earlier this month. He later characterized the evidence against him as “fabricated,” and that he was being tormented for political purposes, saying that this was “nothing but another sordid exercise to further malign our name and part of the continuing persecution to mask the lackadaisical performance of this administration to the detriment of the Filipino people.” He has also filed perjury charges against Po.

Now entering the ring is a familiar performer. Negros Occidental Rep. Ignacio Arroyo, who famously said in 2003 that it was he—and not Mike—who was the mysterious “Jose Pidal,” owner of bank accounts that, according to Sen. Panfilo Lacson, hid up to P260 million in laundered cash.

Now Iggy has rejoined the fray, claiming that it was he, through the family-owned LTA Inc., who actually leased the helicopters (there were five in all) in 2004, again, taking the blame for accusations against his brother Mike. “It would seem that Mr. Po has been giving the government the runaround by using different companies owned and controlled by him to avoid taxes and duties and by dragging my brother, Attorney Mike Arroyo, into a scam… in a clear effort to provide a cover and distraction for [his] own fraudulent acts,” Iggy said in a statement.

But though the blue ribbon committee has asked Iggy to testify, he remains abroad and seems disinclined to make an appearance at the Senate. The Arroyo brothers however have made public what they claim to be a contract that proves that LTA Inc., never bought the helicopters but instead merely leased them from

Lionair from March 16 to May 15, 2004. But the document itself proved problematic: lawyer Lope M. Velasco notarized the document on March 16, 2004, but the residence certificate of Lionair corporate secretary Renato Sia, who signed the document on behalf of the company, was issued on April 2, 2004. But when some senators pointed this out, Velasco issued a certification dated Aug. 15, 2011 saying that the mix-up was caused by a typographical error.

There were other discrepancies in the lease contract, including missing signatures and what appear to be spurious registrations.

Sen. Franklin Drilon has warned that there may be more mysterious documents on their way.  “Remember that Archibald Po was asked to sign a blank deed of sale. I suspect (the lawyers) would try to prove that he sold the helicopters to another corporation or another individual, say Juan de la Cruz,” Drilon told reporters.

All this comes from the Arroyos peddling a web of lies that’s grown too sticky for them to escape from. If the Arroyos are to be believed, there is a big conspiracy to take them down involving false witnesses. But the Arroyo show has sold this story before and now, finally, the audience is no longer as easy to win over.