Probable Cause to be Suspicious of our Courts

Nothing has been heard about Celso de los Angeles. It would seem that he has died, not of throat cancer, which everyone is a doubting Thomas, but of newsworthiness. Media has inexplicably stopped reporting of his status, as a patient and as a respondent. One is tempted to draw two conclusions: that Celso is now old news and not worthy of media coverage, and, he has paid off any or all newshounds who have attempted to follow up what is happening to him and his cases.

Except for the DOJ's announcement of finding probable cause for the filing of estafa against Celso and two of his minions, there has been no further news. And to think that several cases were lodged against him, not only by Senator Mar Roxas but by groups of victims of his preneed scams. What about the multitude of cases filed by the BSP and PDIC? Sad to say, nothing to report about.

Earlier, we mentioned that there may be two possible conclusions re the virtual dearth of news, but there is another reason. It has always been believed that Celso was backed by powerful personalities, very high up in politics. One is Speaker Nograles, who has admitted to investing or depositing about P20 million pesos in Legacy accounts. He also acknowledged that Celso is a partymate. The other personality is not a politician, but is the most powerful civilian in the Philippines. He can easily whisper "back off" to any government agency, and one can be sure that it would. And that would explain why the DOJ downgraded the syndicated estafa originally filed by Senator Roxas, to the watered-down case of simple estafa. Expect DOJ to do these to all the cases filed under it, and that would explain why it ordered all cases to be consolidated for filing in one court: the Makati RTC.

Remember the reason why the Legacy banks were able to continue operations inspite of BSP investigations and closure orders? TROs issued by the lower courts which enabled Celso to collect and embezzle an additional P1.4 billion in bank deposits. Do you expect the courts to pull the rug under Celso, and treat him like the criminal that he is? Your guess is as good as ours.

Schemes to Keep Celso Away from the Courts

Have you read the news report about a DOJ hearing that was moved to August 4 because of the belated swearing-in of a PDIC lawyer? The case was filed by PDIC against Celso in behalf of 10 investors who lost P56 million to Celso's scheme. Although it is not clear to us how and why PDIC is involved in a case which does not concern legitimate bank deposits, it seems that PDIC is doing the right thing since we presume that PDIC will pay the huge court docket fees which have been a deterrent to victims who would like to seek justice against Celso. With this move, PDIC is signalling that it is serious in prosecuting Celso and his cohorts.

Cagayan de Oro (CDO) preneed victims, who have some money left, have filed two cases (with one more on the way as of this writing) of syndicated estafa against Celso, and was the reason why Celso was served two warrants of arrest while in the hospital. Last month, we heard that Cebu victims had planned to file a similar case but could not come up with the costly filing fees. If you remember, there was talk that Senator Mar Roxas would ask the DOJ and the courts to waive filing fees for Legacy victims, but obviously, this did not prosper. Then the DOJ inexplicably came out with a ruling that all Legacy cases, except for CDO, should all be consolidated for filing in Makati courts, even though most victims were located in the Visayas and Mindanao. This deterred a lot of victims who would have to undergo the time-consuming, expensive and long-distance court cases that would be heard in the Makati courts. Thank God that the CDO cases were filed before the DOJ ruling came out; otherwise, up to this date, not a single warrant of arrest would have been served to Celso.

But what happened to all those ballyhooed cases that BSP and PDIC filed much earlier? Nothing, so far. It is ironic that cases filed by private individuals shelling out the last of their private funds, resulted in immediate action by the courts, while cases filed in Makati courts by government agencies (the sames ones who as regulators allowed and tolerated Celso's fraudulent schemes) have not even gone beyond a first hearing at the DOJ. Do you know that the Aug. 4 would be closed-door, with the media kept out of the proceedings? Seems to prove the theory that there are powerful individuals behind Celso: who would do anything to keep Celso's mouth shut until death (if he really has cancer) causes him to bring those names with him to the grave. There a lot of people who would like to see Celso buried together with those nameless ones, who have for too long plundered the government coffers, and now the savings of the poor.