A PARTY-LIST lawmaker on Monday welcomed the Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman George Erwin Garcia’s commitment to cooperate in the upcoming House of Representatives probe of the mysterious million-dollar offshore bank accounts that appear to be connected to the poll body’s P18-billion deal with South Korean firm Miru Systems Co. Ltd. for the 2025 midterm elections.
Meanwhile, Garcia dismissed as “dubious” the documents given to him by former Caloocan City Rep. Edgar Erice which supposed contained a list of foreign bank accounts under his name.
For his part, Erice said Garcia can do whatever he wanted with the information embodied in the documents.
Rep. Rodante Marcoleta of Sagip party-list group said he looks forward to Garcia’s pledge to execute a waiver of secrecy of bank deposits, because “this will make it easier for Congress to investigate the alleged bribery of an unnamed Comelec official concerning the contract with Miru,” the lawmaker said.
Last week, Marcoleta disclosed that a top Comelec official recently opened offshore bank accounts which, based on reliable pieces of evidence and documents, received up to P120 million from the controversial South Korean firm Miru. He did not identify the top poll official involved.
But Garcia was quick to respond, saying he is ready to face the “malicious” allegations against him that he received at least P1 billion worth of funds in relation to the signed Full Automation System with Transparency Audit/Count contract.
The poll chief felt he was the Comelec official being referred to by Marcoleta in his expose last week, claiming it was a ‘demolition job’ against him and the Comelec — he being the poll body’s top official.
According to Marcoleta, at least 14 newly opened bank accounts in Cayman Islands in the Caribbean, China, Hong Kong, North America and Singapore, belonging to the particular Comelec official, held money totalling $15.2 million, or almost ₱1 billion, in various denominations. This official allegedly had a total of 49 offshore bank accounts across 18 global banks.
“Why would anyone even attempt to demolish a constitutional body?” Marcoleta asked, responding to Garcia’s remarks.
While the veteran lawyer-lawmaker anticipated Garcia’s next moves to appear innocent, Marcoleta, however, also called the Comelec chief’s bluff.
“According to Republic Act (RA) 1405, or the Bank Secrecy Act, a valid waiver only applies to banks operating in the Philippines. In the case of offshore bank accounts, a court order is required to compel a foreign jurisdiction to look into suspicious transactions,” Marcoleta pointed out.
“That being the case, any inquiry or investigation into these reported accounts in foreign banks that are beyond Philippine jurisdiction, or any transaction made in regard to such accounts, must require the involvement of their foreign governments, and shall be subject to the respective bank secrecy laws of such foreign jurisdictions,” he added.
Marcoleta noted that issuing such a waiver of secrecy of bank deposits to domestic law enforcement and investigative agencies — such the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC), the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Office of the Ombudsman, among others — even if mandated by the Constitution and Philippine laws, neither empowers such agencies, nor produces any legal effect in foreign jurisdictions.
“Even RA 9160, or the Anti-Money Laundering Act, limits the power of the AMLC to merely making a request to any foreign state for assistance, and subject still to limitations that the laws of foreign states may impose,” Marcoleta noted.
Amid these legal restrictions that may get in the way of investigating the questionable offshore bank accounts and supposed flow of bribe money from Miru, Marcoleta urged Garcia to closely collaborate with the House Committee that will take up the controversy in order to expedite the investigation and get to the bottom without let up.
Marcoleta said his office has been very carefully vetting their initial information coming from reliable sources and whistleblowers, hence did not name any Comelec official yet.
“Thus, if Chairman Garcia is willing to cooperate, the rest of the Comelec’s commissioners should also be encouraged to come forward to prove their own (innocence) — and ultimately the entire poll body’s innocence”, Marcoleta stated.
Marcoleta reiterated his appeal to scrap the controversy-tainted Comelec-Miru deal to collect and count votes in next year’s automated elections.
In an interview, Garcia said the documents from Erice which purportedly came from the Bahamas have “similar fonts” and appeared to be from a single person.
“The account numbers were just changed. If it really came from different banks, these should be different from each other and these should have logos,” Garcia asserted in Filipino.
He said he would submit the documents for verification to determine the appropriate charges to be filed against his detractors.
According to him, it was clear the documents in question were falsified, adding that falsification is a more serious criminal offense.
He said the claim of the former lawmaker that these were only sent by a source abroad is unbelievable.
He also vowed to probe that the bank accounts attributed to him were either non-existent or did not belong to him.
