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For the past 17 years, The Filipino Express has provided the Filipino American community the best news, arts and entertainment coverage from around the United States and the Philippines.
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This website includes selected articles from this week's edition of the Filipino Express. Not all the stories published in the printed version appear on this site.
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Aragoncillo may have spied in White House
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Leandro Aragoncillo |
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Washington, D.C. --- Both the FBI and CIA are calling it the first case of espionage in the White House in modern history, and a Filipino is in the middle of it.
The possibility that Filipino American Leandro Aragoncillo was passing the material while stationed as a U.S. Marine security official at the White House marks a dramatic expansion of the case against him and a former high-ranking Philippine police official, Michael Ray Aquino.
Both were arrested and charged in federal court in Newark, New Jersey last month with sending classified information obtained this year to the Philippines -- more than two years after Aragoncillo left the White House and went to work as an FBI intelligence analyst.
Officials from the White House, Justice Department and FBI declined to comment late yesterday, other than to confirm that Aragoncillo first went to work at the White House in 1999, when Al Gore was vice president. ABC News reported on October 5 that Aragoncillo had admitted taking classified documents while he worked in Cheney’s office. Officials with the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office in Newark declined to comment on the report.
“I don’t know of a case where the vetting broke down before and resulted in a spy being in the White House,” said Richard Clarke, a former White House advisor who is now an ABC News consultant.
“Even though it’s not for the Russians or some other government, the fact that it occurred at the White House is a matter of great concern,” said John Martin, who was the government’s lead espionage prosecutor for 26 years.
The Philippine Consular Office in New York said it has no comment on Aragoncillo’s case.
Federal prosecutors in New Jersey charged last month that Aragoncillo conspired with Aquino to steal more than 100 documents this year from the FBI, CIA and State Department. The men are accused of feeding classified material about the Philippines to politicians seeking to topple the government.
Aragoncillo retired in 2004 after 21 years in the Marines and began working for the FBI as an intelligence analyst. Reports apparently based on the classified material allegedly downloaded by Aragoncillo are being published in the Philippines. The reports reveal not only sources of sensitive U.S. information but include frank and unflattering assessments of Philippine leaders.
In one such report published in a Manila newspaper, comments attributed to diplomats at the U.S. Embassy described Arroyo as weak and overbearing with little popular credibility.Vice President Noli de Castro was called inept and unfit to take her place. Clandestine discussions among dissident soldiers are detailed, and the president’s chances of surviving a coup are weighed.
Aragoncillo, 46, and Aquino, 39, were arrested in New Jersey on Sept. 10 and are being held without bail. Aquino, a former deputy director of the Philippine National Police and a Philippine national, is slated to be formally indicted in Newark today, according to one law enforcement official.
A criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in New Jersey charges that Aragoncillo shared the classified documents with Aquino as well as with two high-level Philippine public officials and a third former high-level official.
According to the criminal complaint, federal investigators first took an interest in Aragoncillo after he tried to intervene in behalf of Aquino, who had been arrested in March for overstaying a tourist visa.
Aquino had come to the United States almost four years earlier and settled in New York. When he left his homeland, he was under indictment for alleged involvement in the kidnapping and murder of a public relations executive who had quarreled with Estrada, and the man’s driver.
After Aragoncillo contacted U.S. immigration officials this spring, identifying himself as an FBI employee and Aquino’s friend, the FBI launched an audit of its internal database, which offers access to documents from various government agencies.
Investigators discovered Aragoncillo had used his top-secret clearance to download and print information relating to the Philippines although the material was outside his area of assignment, the complaint alleges. He then allegedly forwarded the information by e-mail, telephone and text message to the officials in the Philippines.
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POLL WINNERS. Gani Puertollano (fourth from left) is flanked by the newly elected directors of PIDCI. From left: Francis Sison, Lita Pena, Lolit Gillberg, Puertollano, Belen Castillo, Dr. Baby Bleza and Paul Verzosa.
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NEW YORK --- Isagani Puertollano emerged as the winner in the election for president of the Philippine Independence Day Council Inc. after he defeated rival Ludi Hughes in an election on Saturday, October 1, that nearly never happened.
Two days before election day, Hughes, together with her six other runningmates for the PIDCI board, had filed a preliminary injunction against the holding of the election and a restraining order against PIDCI, Nimia Lacebal and ten John Does.
But Justice Jane Solomon of the New York State Supreme Court’s ruled on Friday, September 30, to allow the PIDCI election to push through the following day.
Together with Puertollano, six other candidates were elected into the PIDCI’s six-man board of directors.
They are Dr. Baby Bleza, Lolita Gillberg, Lita Peña, Francis Sison and Paul Versoza.
Sison garnered the most number of votes among the candidates for the board of directors, receiving 150 votes. Gilberg got 123 votes; Bleza, 108 votes; Castillo, 101; Peña, 99; and Verzosa, 98.
Puertollano got 116 votes as against 92 for Hughes.
However, the PIDCI election committee has yet to officially declare the winners.
The PIDCI was instructed by Justice Solomon pending the resolution of the case before her sala.
Both parties to the lawsuit are to meet again in court on October 31 for a determination of Hughes’ motion.
The election drew a big crowd at the Kalayaan Hall of the Philippine Center, where the community heard the speeches from all of the candidates before the voting. According to the election committee, out of 248 member-organizations listed in its rolls, some 210 delegates cast their votes.
During the canvassing of ballots, which started at 5:30 p.m. Puertollano led early on; Hughes trailed him until the last ballot was counted, which almost 9:00 p.m.
Shortly after the votes were tallied and winners known, Hughes and Wilfredo Macaraeg, one of the candidates in her ticket, approached State of New York Administrative Judge Tom Rodriguez to demand custody of all documents related to membership and the election.
This prompted a heated discussion between Hughes and Macaraeg on one side and Judge Rodriguez on the other side with the former arguing their case as “mandated by the court”.
Macaraeg showed Judge Rodriguez a list of supposedly five instructions made by Justice Solomon.
But when asked if there was an official document which contained such instructions, Hughes said that it was with their lawyer. After failing to contact her lawyer, Judge Rodriguez told both Hughes and Macaraeg that the documents will be given to the court.
Hughes was asked by The Filipino Express if she was considering conceding the election, her curt response was: “This is only the beginning.”
Hughes, together with six others running for the PIDCI board in her slate, had earlier filed a preliminary injunction and restraining order against PIDCI, Nimia Lacebal and ten John Does preventing the election to be held.
The complaint, signed by lawyer Emad G. Iskaros on Sept. 26, 2005, requested among other things:- A temporary restraining order preventing the impending October 1, 2005 election;
- enforcement and review of the PIDCI by-laws, especially relating to conditions for membership and admission to membership;
- appointment of a special master to oversee the enforcement and review of the membership application submissions; and
- for damages.”
The complaint included four causes of action: (1) breach of fiduciary duty; (2) fraud; (3) negligent misrepresentation and (4) fictitious defendants.
The first three actions requested that the plaintiffs are entitled to damages “of an amount to be determined at trial but in no event less than $1,000,000.00”
At the town hall meeting held at the Philippine Center on Sept. 29, where it was announced that a complaint for temporary restraining order was filed by Hughes and her entire team, Macaraeg said this was done after their concerns were not addressed by Lacebal and PIDCI. He said that he had presented two letters but were not responded to.
“If we cannot seek relief of our concerns from PIDCI, we have to seek the intervention of the court,” Macaraeg said. “That’s the only way.”
Meanwhile, reacting on the lawsuit, Loida Nicolas-Lewis, national chairman of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations, Inc . (NaFFAA), issued a terse statement saying: “I am deeply disappointed that Ludivinia de Asis Hughes and six of her candidates for PIDC election have used the judicial process to prevent the October 1, 2005.”
She added that had she been aware of this in their meeting of Sept. 28 to discuss the town hall meeting,
“I would not have encouraged the holding of the Town Hall Meeting and I would have voiced NaFFAA’s strongest objection to any move to delay the election,” she said.
For the sake of unity, Lewis prodded “both parties to settle their differences amicably.”
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Paterson, NEW JERSEY --- After a three-week wait, Fatima Ceniza Aquino, wife of detained former Philipine police Superintendent Michael Ray, has finally visited her husband on September 30 at his cell at the Passaic County Jail in Paterson, New Jersey.
“We were really crying when we saw each other,” Fatima told The Filipino Express shortly after she emerged out of jail complex together with her sister, a sister in-law and mother.
Michael Ray looked like he shed off a few pounds, Fatima said in describing her husband’s physical appearance.
Fatima added that Michael Ray likewise noted she, too, appeared to have lost a few pounds herself.
The visit lasted for about 30 minutes and was held inside a room where inmates and visitors are separated by a glass wall. They are able to talk through a telephone.
Michael Ray Aquino is being held for espionage charges for allegedly passing on to several individuals classified US government information purportedly given to him by Filipino-American Leandro Aragoncillo, a former FBI intelligence analyst.
Aquino, however, maintained his innocence, saying he was unaware the information forwarded to him by Aragoncillo were classified.
He even described the information as “rubbish”, saying one can easily read them in Philippine newspapers.
Mark Berman, the US government-appointed lawyer for Aquino, has asked for an indefinite postponement of a court hearing that was supposed to take place last September 21. A bail hearing has also yet to be set.
A source privy to the case said backdoor negotiations may be ongoing between Aquino and federal prosecutors.
Fatima said Michael Ray was quick to revert to his normal gleeful self after the “crying session.”
He requested Fatima to visit him at least once a week, to which Fatima promised to do more than once.
“Ninoy (Michael Ray) asked to continue talking to Neion (their nine-year-old son),” Fatima said, adding, that Aquino kept on saying “we must pray and pray.”
Fatima expressed optimism her husband would soon be freed, echoing his lawyer’s contention that the charges against the former police officer were weak.
Meanwhile, Consul Maria Lourdes C. Legaspi told The Filipino Express that she has visited Aquino at his cell on September 21 as part of the Consulate’s effort to provide assistance to Filipino nationals.
Legaspi, who is legal division chief of the Philippine Consulate here in New York, said Aquino has no medical concerns, and his requests for family visits and phone calls have been granted by prison authorities.
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NEW YORK --- The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is splurging taxpayers’ money on diplomats assigned in six countries at a time the Philippines is suffering from a financial crunch.
The Daily Tribune reported that the government is spending almost P50 million a year for what Cavite Rep. Gilbert Remulla called as Malacañang’s apparently preferential treatment of seven Filipino diplomats posted in the United States, Germany, France, Italy, Austria and South Korea.
Remulla, during a budget hearing on September 29, hit at the DFA for spending too much money for housing the diplomats, specifically the case of Philippine consul general to New York Cecille Rebong.
Rebong is residing at the posh Trump Towers in New York City, which is just across the United Nations, and Manila is spending $10,000 or almost P600,000 a month for that luxurious address.
It was Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Franklin Ebdalin who volunteered the information to the House committee on appropriations during the hearing of Malacañang’s proposed 2006 budget amounting to P1.053 trillion.
After admitting that the government is spending more than half a million pesos for the accommodation of Rebong at the Trump Towers, Ebdalin said the government would be relieved of paying that much when Rebong is transferred to a town house owned by the Philippine government also in New York City.
In New York, Consul Badajos said Consul General Rebong will be able to move to a townhouse complex owned by the Philippine government by the second quarter of next year.
Work has begun on the complex, which will then serve as the Consul General’s official residence, Badajos said.
He identified the 4th, 5th and 6th floors of the government-owned building located in downtown Manhattan as the object of ongoing rehabilitation work.
“The townhouse is supposed to be the official residence of the consul general, but because of its being in a state of disrepair, she has to await until its ready for occupancy,” Badajos told The Filipino Express.
Aside from Rebong, the congressmen were surprised to know that the government is spending $10,500 for accommodations in Los Angeles, California; $11,000 in Berlin, Germany; $11,000 in Paris, France; $10,000 in Rome, Italy; $10,000 in Vienna, Austria; and $10,000 in Seoul, South Korea.
“If you look at the rent, the amount of $10,000 that we pay in New York is comparable to the others. We thought we’ll give her (Rebong) a place where she could still represent the country well,” Ebdalin said.
According to him, the government spends $72,000 a month or $870,000 a year for the accommodations of the seven Filipino diplomats.
Ebdalin refused to name the other six diplomats.
But a check on the Web site of the DFA showed that the Philippine government is spending more than half-a-million pesos a month for the posh residences of Los Angeles consul general Marciano Paynor Jr.; Philippine Ambassador to Berlin Minerva Jean Falcon; Ambassador to Paris Hector Villaroel; Ambassador to Rome Philippe Lhuillier; Ambassador to Seoul Aladin Villacorte; and Ambassador to Vienna Victor Garcia II.
Remulla said it is “morally incorrect” for the government to spend P550,000 a month each for these six diplomats.
Months back, Malacañang announced an austerity program in the bureaucracy to stem the financial crisis but apparently the DFA has not been taking part in it.
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