Memo to Gloria Macapagal Arroyo: ‘Owwa funds are private funds’

While abroad, I learned from a news report (Inquirer, 7/23/11) that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) had filed her counter-affidavit on the Owwa (Overseas Workers Welfare Administration) funds plunder complaint I filed against her and others at the Department of Justice on July 22.

1. There is no forum shopping. I filed the original complaint with the Office of the Ombudsman in May 2004. Then Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo slept on it. Worse, when Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez took over, the case did not move an inch until she left office. She was obviously under sedation. In 2007, her underlings issued a resolution declaring their investigation closed and terminated “without prejudice” to the case’s refiling or reopening. This matter was alleged in the recitals of the complaint I filed with the DOJ, and given as the reason why the case was being filed with the DOJ and not re-filed at the Office of the Ombudsman. The covering sheet of the complaint also indicates that a similar one (not the same case) had earlier been lodged at the Office of the Ombudsman. In other words, there was full disclosure.

2. OWWA funds are private funds. They are sourced from private contributions of OFWs and their employers. GMA cannot by mere executive fiat convert these funds from private to public. She does not have that power. Neither the Constitution nor any of the statutes she invokes give her that power. She cannot commingle the private funds of OWWA and send them to PhilHealth. Besides, how did the OFWs benefit from the releases of their hard-earned money when their funds were used by GMA to contribute to the war efforts of the United States in the Middle East? How did the OFWs benefit from the materials bought to refurbish Philippine embassies and acquire vehicles for the embassy staff?

3. GMA says there is no proof she made money or benefited from these transactions. She should look at the law again. Mere misuse, misappropriation or malversation of funds as a predicate crime is sufficient proof of plunder. There are six predicate crimes defined by law. Personal profit becomes an element only in the last group enumerated in the law. No such requirement is needed in the first set defined by law.

—FRANCISCO I. CHAVEZ,

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