Senator Loren Legarda allegedly failed to declare
as part of her assets a posh condominium unit on Park Avenue in New York City
for four years, and did so only in 2011 just before she and the other senators
convened as an impeachment court to try then Chief Justice Renato Corona.
Businessman Louis Biraogo, a self-styled public
interest advocate, made the revelation on Thursday at a hastily called press
conference, where he accused Legarda of being “as guilty” as the impeached
Corona for not declaring all her assets in her statement of assets, liabilities
and net worth (SALN).
Biraogo also accused Legarda of trying to hide her
ownership of a multimillion peso mansion at No. 40 Cambridge Circle in the
exclusive Forbes Park in Makati City, registered under Loren Legarda and
Associates Inc. (LLAI), and of opting to declare her old family home in Malabon
City as her official residence.
“I have the smoking gun needed to prove that
Legarda does not deserve to stay a minute longer as a senator of the land,”
Biraogo said, presenting before the media copies of the documents he said he
obtained “just by searching Google,” and with the help of lawyer friends.
Biraogo said the documents proved that the
reelectionist senator, who is leading in most surveys in the midterm elections,
paid the “princely price” of $700,000 (about P36 million based on the 2006
exchange rate) for the condo unit at 77 Park Avenue.
He described the location as a “very expensive area
in New York City where the Rockefellers and Trumps also have properties.”
Documents provided by Biraogo showed that Legarda
bought the 708-square foot single-residential condominium unit 10-B from a
certain Frank Feinberg of Wall Street, Seattle, Washington, on May 9, 2006, for
$700,000.
But the SALN she filed in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010
did not include the lot under her real property assets.
In all four filings, an item in Annex A for real,
personal and other property showed her “equity in real property (co-owned with
brothers, etc.)” of P7.175 million.
In 2011, however, an item under “Real
Property-USA,” appeared in her SALN with the acquisition cost of P28.7 million.
Biraogo said if this was the same Park Avenue
property, then Legarda might have undervalued the condominium unit by using the
2011 exchange rate, instead of the 2006 rate.
“Using the peso-exchange rate in 2011 instead of
the prevailing rate in 2006 may be another clue that Legarda was already
frazzled, dazed and confused even, when she declared that acquisition cost of
P27,800,000 (sic),” he said in a press statement.
“What made Legarda declare a piece of US property
in her 2011 SALN? Was it because she became very, very afraid that she would be
in the same boat as Corona—that her hidden condo unit at 77 Park Avenue would
be found out?” Biraogo said.
“Let’s not forget that she filed her 2011 SALN at
about the time when the impeachment trial of Corona was already at fever
pitch,” he said.
Responding to Legarda’s defense that she listed the
US property under Annex A of her SALN in 2007, Biraogo said this was not true.
‘Nowhere’
“Annex A is the very instrument of Senator
Legarda’s deceit and her circumvention of the strict SALN requirement that all
properties must be declared as to their location, acquisition cost and fair
market value,” he said.
“Where in Legarda’s SALNs from 2007 to 2011, or in
any of their annexes can the words #77 Park Avenue, NYC, be found? The answer
is ‘NOWHERE’ because Legarda has never declared the same in the strict manner
prescribed by the law.”
At the press conference, Biraogo said he was not
singling out Legarda. “It so happened that we only have evidence against her.
If we get evidence against other candidates, we will run after them, too.”
He acknowledged that he was connected to a failed
movement to convince former Vice President Noli de Castro to run for president
in the 2004 elections, but said the public should not jump to conclusions.
“How can there be any connections when Noli has
terminated his political career already? And if Noli de Castro is doing this
out of vendetta, he should have done it long ago,” Biraogo said.
‘Citizen Barok’
Biraogo, 52, said he has a trucking business, T.
Biraogo Trucking Corp. based in Biñan, Laguna province, and also engages in the
buy-and-sell business. He heads a newly formed “public interest advocacy group”
called Citizen Barok that “keeps a watchful eye on government.”
He said he would file graft and corruption, money
laundering and perjury charges against Legarda in the Ombudsman to make her
accountable for her nondisclosure of the condo unit in the US and a mansion at
Forbes Park in Makati.
“Legarda’s propensity to have properties in the
neighborhoods of the ultra-rich is also reflected in her being a resident of a
mansion at No. 40 Cambridge Circle in Forbes Park, Makati,” he said.
He cited a lifestyle article written by Joanne Rae
Ramirez, in which Legarda purportedly confirmed her ownership of the Forbes
Park mansion and described it as her “dream home.”
PR firm
“But on paper, the Forbes mansion is owned by
Legarda’s PR firm Loren Legarda and Associates Inc. (LLAI), a company which has
no real assets, income or known activities related to PR.
“But is it really owned by LLAI?” asked Biraogo.
“Loren Legarda owns 99 percent of LLAI, so she is for all intent and purposes
the owner of the mansion at No. 40 Cambridge Circle, Forbes Park. Has she
declared ownership of the Forbes mansion? Nope,” Biraogo said.
He said LLAI may prove to be Legarda’s own version
of the Basa-Guidote Enterprise used by impeached Chief Justice Corona to defend
questionable acquisition of properties.
“Will Loren also call on her father and two
brothers to testify to save her?” the businessman asked.
Records showed that as early as 2006, LLAI was the
registered owner of the mansion in Forbes Park, Biraogo said.
But even though LLAI indicated its ownership of the
property in its 2006 tax declaration, Legarda acquired it as early as 2002, he
said.
Despite taking actual residence in Forbes Park,
Biraogo said Legarda continued to use her family home as her official residence
at 48 Dunwoody Street, University Hills, Malabon City.
Cases at SC
Biraogo said he had been a public interest advocate
since 1984 when, as a sophomore student at the University of the Philippines in
Diliman, Quezon City, where he finished a philosophy degree, he sued then UP
President Edgardo Angara all the way to the Supreme Court for hiking tuition
and other fees.
He said he filed another suit in the Supreme Court
in December 1985 questioning the validity of the snap presidential elections.
Biraogo said he also questioned the election of
aliens to Congress (Biraogo vs Nograles), the power of the House of
Representatives to propose amendments to the Constitution independently of the
Senate (Biraogo vs House of Representatives) and the inaction of the government
on the Philippine claim to Sabah (Biraogo vs Del Rosario, G.R. No. 206323),
among others.
He said he was also a lead petitioner in the court
fight against the anticybercrime law, which Congress passed in 2012.
Biraogo also headed the Kabayan for President
Movement.
By DJ Yap,
Philippine Daily Inquirer
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