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THE Philippine government discovered that the $4-million deposited
in a Swiss bank, which belongs to the children of Herminio Disini,
the former golf buddy of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, has
been withdrawn.
In a seven-page pleading filed with the
Sandiganbayan First Division, the Presidential Commission on Good
Government (PCGG) and the Office of the Solicitor General revealed
that the accounts under the names of Liliana and Herminio
“Angel” Disini are now empty.
“There is reliable information that the money
deposited in the Swiss accounts of Liliana and Herminio Angel Disini
had already been withdrawn,” the pleading stated.
The Solicitor general stressed that the Disini
Swiss deposit is part of Civil Case No. 0013, a lawsuit pending
before the Sandiganbayan since 1987.
It was learned that the Swiss Federal Court
released the Credit Suisse account from a two-decade-old freeze
order on August 18, 2006, after the Philippine government failed to
secure a favorable final and executory verdict in its bid to recover
the Disini deposits.
A Sandiganbayan resolution dated December 29,
2006 placed the said Swiss account under its custody to prevent
Disini and his relatives from taking out the deposits.
However, the Anti-graft court ruling fell short
of the ‘final and
executory’ decision that the Swiss authorities
required of the PCGG as a precondition for the maintenance of the
freeze order.
The Swiss court in the year 1986 ordered the
Disini account to be
frozen due to the lawsuits filed by the
Philippine government against him, which stemmed from charges that
he allegedly amassed ill-gotten wealth with the Marcoses.
There were two separate criminal cases pending
before the Sandiganbayan against Disini, in which he was accused
of amassing millions in illegal commissions for brokering the award
of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant in favor of American firms
Westinghouse Electric Corp. and Burns and Roe.
-- Jomar Canlas
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