MANILA, Philippines—The lawyer for the so-called “Alabang Boys” Tuesday admitted preparing the order for the release of the drug suspects for the signature of Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez two days before Christmas.

Lawyer Felisberto Verano also owned up to having printed the draft order on a Department of Justice letterhead that he said he obtained after years of handling cases that involve the department.

Verano said he sent the copy of the draft order to the office of Justice Undersecretary Ricardo Blancaflor on the morning of Dec. 23 hours before he and the parents of suspect Richard Brodett met with Gonzalez to ask for the release of Brodett, Joseph Tecson and Jorge Joseph.

“It was a draft order which I had made because I was really hoping that he will agree to the release. And in my mind the moment he agrees to releasing them he will just sign it and have a process server run to the PDEA (Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency),” Verano told reporters.

PDEA agents arrested Brodett and Tecson in Ayala Alabang, Muntinlupa City, and Tecson in Cubao, Quezon City, four hours apart in a buy-bust operation on Sept. 20.

Verano, who represents Brodett and Tecson, said he drafted the order, hoping that Gonzalez would sign it. “I was trying to catch the Christmas season and I waited and waited and waited. Unfortunately, he refused to sign it,” the lawyer said.

Fraternity brother

Verano said Blancaflor was his fraternity brother in the Fraternal Order of Utopia, which is based in the Ateneo law school. But he added this wasn’t the reason he coursed the document to the undersecretary’s office.

Verano said he sought Blancaflor’s assistance on the release order because the undersecretary previously helped the Brodett family when he called up the PDEA about the suspects’ continued detention even after being cleared by the justice department.

“But he was not around. So I requested his secretary to please have it forwarded to the [justice] secretary,” Verano said.

At a hearing of the House committee on dangerous drugs Tuesday, Blancaflor acknowledged that Verano coursed his draft order through his office. It was received by Blancaflor’s secretary Janet Payoyo.

Not normal

Verano’s move, which Chief Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño described as “not normal,” also took lawmakers by surprise.

“What he had is a situation where the counsel of the accused had the temerity and presumptuousness to submit a draft order to a very high official of the land,” Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez said.

Zuño said it was the prosecutor handling the case who usually prepared orders of release, to be signed by the justice secretary.

Gonzalez earlier said that the draft order, which he found on his desk and which he had refused to sign, could have been prepared by someone from outside the department because it misspelled his name.

Verano admitted that drafting a release order for the justice secretary “is not normal” for a lawyer handling a case being handled by the department.

He said he only wanted to facilitate the freedom of the suspects just before Christmas and weeks after the prosecutors found no probable cause to charge them with drug trafficking.

Overzealous

“I am just facilitating the order. Maybe I was a little bit overzealous,” Verano said when asked if he thought what he did was unethical.

Payoyo, who has been identified by sources as the one who placed the draft order on Gonzalez’s desk, spoke on the issue for the first time Tuesday. She said she forwarded the document to Gonzalez’s office because it was addressed to him.

Payoyo said one of Gonzalez’s staff members received it.

“The envelope said ‘From Atty. Felisberto Verano for Secretary Raul Gonzalez through Undersecretary Blancaflor.’ I was not aware he was the lawyer of the suspects of illegal drugs. So I received the communication from the office of Attorney Verano,” she told the committee.

Messenger

Payoyo said she first received a sealed document from a messenger, and called up Blancaflor, who was in Iloilo by then, to ask him for guidance. Since the envelope was sealed, he told her to call up Verano to ask what it contained.

Verano said he was requesting Blancaflor’s office to send it to Gonzalez. Blancaflor then authorized Payoyo to open the envelope. Upon learning it was connected to a drug case, he asked her to consult the concerned prosecutor about the document.

Payoyo talked to State Prosecutor John Resado by phone, and the latter confirmed that the text of the document ordered the release of the drug suspects pending a review of the resolution dismissing the complaint against them.

[At the hearing, Resado said he was a student of Verano at the Far Eastern University law school.]

Payoyo added that she wanted to know if it was all right to send the document to Gonzalez, since Blancaflor’s office had been requested to do so. After Resado confirmed that the document was a release order, she gave it to Gonzalez’s secretary.

Upon knowing that the document was a release order, Blancaflor said he directed his secretary to tell Verano that what he did was “very unusual.”

But Verano’s reply was that he and Gonzalez had already talked about it.

During his meeting with Gonzalez on Monday afternoon, Blancaflor said he told the justice secretary about Verano’s statement. Gonzalez confirmed speaking with Verano but said he refused to release the drug suspects.

Habeas corpus petition

Blancaflor, who said he never personally saw the draft order, said he called up Verano Tuesday morning to ask him why he said Gonzalez had known about the document.

Verano’s reply, according to Blancaflor, was: “I was just taking a chance.”

Verano told reporters at the Court of Appeals office in Manila the draft order was sent to Blancaflor’s office before he and Brodett’s parents met with Gonzalez in the afternoon of the same day.

“I pleaded with him [Gonzalez]. The parents also pleaded with him to release the boys because there is already a release order. The case has been dismissed,” Verano said.

P50-million bribe

“And he answered, ‘You know, how can I release them now with that kind of story?’ He was referring to that headline about the P50-million bribe offer or bribe,” the defense lawyer said.

He said he tried to explain to Gonzalez that the justice department had already cleared the suspects. “I said in the spirit of Christmas … Please release the boys even if just temporary and go ahead and review the case,” Verano said.

“He repeated, ‘How can I with this kind of story? They might think that I’m also part of that P50 million,”’ the lawyer said.

Verano said Gonzalez told him he would study the lawyer’s proposal for a furlough under guard for the suspects. The proposal called for the suspects to be released during the Christmas holidays and to return to their detention on New Year’s Day.

The suspects were not released.

Gonzalez told the Philippine Daily Inquirer during the Christmas break that he thumbed down the proposal because it wasn’t according to the rules.