Muntinlupa Rep. Rodolfo Biazon, chair of the House defense committee, told the Inquirer that Mendoza would be asked to share details of her findings on the $5 million that the UN had paid the Philippines for sending its peacekeeping forces abroad.

Mendoza’s scheduled appearance on Wednesday is an offshoot of her testimony on Feb. 1 at the House justice committee hearing on the plea bargain agreement struck by the Office of the Ombudsman with former military comptroller Carlos Garcia, who was originally charged with plunder.

As Congress digs deeper to unravel the web of corruption in the military, retired Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim urged the Department of National Defense (DND) committee looking into the slush funds of military generals not to “whitewash” the investigation.

In a telephone interview, Lim said there were fears of a “cover-up” because the DND committee could be made up of members of the military comptrollership or “mistahs” (classmates) of former comptrollers.

He said the testimonies of “truth-tellers”—Mendoza in the House of Representatives and retired Lt. Col. George Rabusa, a former military budget officer, and his former assistant, Lt. Col. Antonio Lim, in the Senate—would be put to waste.

“The DND committee should be reminded that all eyes are on it and we expect it to abide by President Aquino’s mandate to rid the military of corruption no matter who gets hurt,” Lim said.

He said the defense department and the military should take this opportunity to be honest with themselves and admit that there was something rotten in the system.

“There will be no reforms if we remain in self-denial. This is not about personalities. This is about the institution that we pledge to serve and on which the public puts its trust,” Lim added.

At the House defense committee hearing scheduled for Feb. 9, Biazon said Mendoza would be made to expound further on her testimony on the missing UN funds.

In her testimony last week, Mendoza said that in the course of sniffing through the audit trail of Garcia’s plunder case, she stumbled on information about a $5-million UN check meant for Philippine peacekeeping forces.

The check was transmitted directly to the Armed Forces of the Philippines and did not pass through the Bureau of Treasury or the Department of Budget and Management.

Mendoza said she had wanted to go to the UN office in New York to verify the information. But a change in the Ombudsman (Simeon Marcelo resigned and was replaced by Merceditas Gutierrez) and an order from her boss at the Commission on Audit (COA), Guillermo Carague, to “go slow” on her investigation stifled her plans to follow up on the lead.

Another UN check lost

Biazon said he received information that another $3 million from the United Nations was also reported lost by government auditors. He expressed hope that the House probe would shed light on the missing funds.

He noted that the UN funds were separate from the P200 million that Congress was setting aside annually for the military’s deployment of peacekeeping personnel overseas.

“How these funds have been spent will be the subject of our investigation,” Biazon said.

He said the House would summon officials of the Department of Foreign Affairs, DND and the AFP as resource persons at the hearing on Wednesday.

He pointed out that the Philippine government had deployed soldiers in seven international hot spots—the Golan Heights (349); Haiti (194); Liberia (143); Timor Leste (139); Darfur, Sudan (138); Khartoum, Sudan (55); and Ivory Coast (7).

“I believe we are paid $1,028 per month for every soldier we send regardless of whether he is a general or private. We are also paid rent of $1,670 a month for our 6x6 trucks and $5 a month for each of our weapons. This is a very substantial amount of money and we want to know if it went to the intended recipients,” Biazon said.

Mendoza has confirmed her attendance at the House justice committee hearing on the plea bargain deal set for Tuesday.

She appeared in the Senate blue ribbon committee hearing on Thursday and begged senators not to include her among the resource persons in its probe.

The House justice committee chair Rep. Niel Tupas Jr. said the inquiry would go deeper into the controversial plea bargain deal.

In a text message, Tupas said COA officials had been summoned to attend Tuesday’s hearing along with officers of United Coconut Planters Bank and Land Bank of the Philippines where Garcia had opened AFP bank accounts.

Even so, government prosecutors face an uphill battle in rescinding the plea bargain, Sen. Franklin Drilon said Sunday.

“I’m not very optimistic that the prosecutors can untangle the legal mess that they created. I think that they had found themselves in a legal mess that they can hardly get out of,” Drilon said in an interview.

Prosecutors under the Office of the Ombudsman had filed a manifestation asking the Sandiganbayan to defer its ruling on the plea bargain involving the P303-million plunder case against Garcia.

Appearing at Thursday’s Senate inquiry into the plea bargain, Ombudsman Gutierrez was prodded by Drilon and Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago to file the manifestation, citing fresh testimonies of Rabusa and Mendoza.

If the manifestation to defer a ruling on the plea bargain would be given due course by the Sandiganbayan, the next logical step would be to rescind the agreement and restore the charge of plunder, Drilon said.

But what stands in the way is the plea bargain itself in which Garcia had pleaded guilty to lesser offenses and been granted bail, he said.

Gil Cabacungan & TJ Burgonio, Phil. Daily Inquirer
Gil