MANILA, Philippines – (UPDATE 8) Controversial former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc-Joc” Bolante arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), late Tuesday night and was promptly whisked off to St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City where he is considered under Senate custody.

Bolante arrived on Northwest Airlines Flight 71 at exactly 10:32 p.m. and deplaned in a wheelchair some 20 minutes after the plane landed.

Looking visibly thinner and, at one point, clutching his chest, Bolante, in a black jacket and his hair streaked with white, was immediately taken by security escorts to the immigration office of the NAIA for processing because he was officially deported from the United States where he was detained for two years at the Kenosha County Detention Center in Wisconsin.

He was then escorted to the NAIA lobby where an eight-member team from the Office of the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms read Bolante the upper chamber’s 2005 order for his arrest, which was received by the former official’s lawyer, Antonio Zulueta.

After this, unseen by a group of protesters gathered outside the terminal, Bolante was loaded onto an ambulance of the Manila International Airport Authority and brought to the hospital.

“He [Bolante] is under arrest and under our custody in the hospital…gagwardyahan namin yan [we will guard him],” Senate sergeant-at-arms Jose Balajadia Jr. said.

Balajadia said Bolante was admitted to Room 2016 of the hospital.

“The warrant [of arrest] was served and [Bolante] knew it,” Balajadia said. “He knows he is under our custody.”

He said Bolante will be guarded by two personnel from his office “24/7.”

Although Balajadia acknowledged that “we don’t know his [Bolante’s] condition,” he said they were sure Bolante “has to be there at the hospital.”

Deputy sergeant at arms Jaime Dimacili, head of the arresting team, said Bolante complained of chest pains and so they allowed him to be brought to St. Luke's.

Bolante arrived at the hospital on a stretcher at exactly 11:46 p.m.

The media were barred from entering the hospital but officials informed them an official bulletin on Bolante’s health would be issued later.

According to earlier plans, Bolante was to be whisked off to the Senate, where he was to spend the night. However, he was brought to the hospital for a medical checkup in an apparent last-minute change of plans.

“We don’t have the facility here to address his medical condition,” Balajadia told reporters waiting for Bolante in the Senate.

Bolante statement

In a statement released to reporters a few minutes before he arrived, Bolante vowed to “answer any and all accusations at the proper forum.”

“But first, I shall seek a medical checkup and treatment due mainly to the mental and physical stress and ailments brought about due to my detention in the United States,” Bolante said in the statement issued by his counsel Zulueta.

The former government official has been accused of engineering the so-called fertilizer scam, which involved the alleged diversion of P728 million intended for assistance to farmers to the 2004 campaign kitty of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

He left the country in January 2006, after the Senate issued a warrant for his arrest.

The Senate said the arrest order was issued after Bolante snubbed summonses to appear at the inquiry into the scam.

However, in the statement, Bolante said he “had no intention of snubbing the Senate hearings and I had made known to the Senate in writing the reasons for my non-appearance that I had made prior commitments abroad, which were set long before the Senate scheduled hearings.”

“Now that I am back, I shall now fulfill my promise to face the issues and all the malicious accusations against me,” Bolante said in the statement, in which he also claimed that he fled the country and sought asylum in the United States for fear of his life after the Senate issued a warrant for his arrest.

“This confirmed my belief that forces from many fronts were out to get me--either in prison or six feet under the ground,” he said.

“In truth and in fact, I committed through counsel in writing to appear before the Senate during the last week of January 2006,” he said.

“Many baseless accusations have been thrown against me these past years,” Bolante said. “I chose to remain silent but I have come to realize that the more I remain silent, the more vicious the accusations have become.”

Bolante was arrested by American immigration authorities after his US visa was cancelled on the request of the Senate. He sought asylum in the US but his petition was denied.

Motion for TRO

Hours before his return, Bolante’s lawyer asked the Supreme Court to stop the Senate from arresting him.

But the letdown was swift: Acting Supreme Court spokesperson Gleo Guerra said the justices were on recess until Nov 10. At press time, Guerra said she had not received information from acting Chief Justice Leonardo Quisumbing on whether the tribunal would act on Bolante’s motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO).

With no TRO from the high court, the team of Balajadia proceeded to take custody of Bolante upon his landing at NAIA.

Balajadia earlier said a TRO was “the only thing that can stop [him] from getting” Bolante on the strength of an arrest warrant issued three years ago by the Senate.

Asked about Senate President Manuel Villar’s instruction, Balajadia said: “Get him, period. Invite him here [at the Senate] and let him stay here.”

Doing a Neri

Bolante and his lawyer had raised the argument used by former Socioeconomic Secretary Romulo Neri, who had managed to evade testifying on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s role in the controversial $329-million National Broadband Network deal between the government and China’s ZTE Corp.

In an urgent petition filed by Zulueta, Bolante argued that the arrest order issued by the Senate on Dec. 12, 2005, was not valid because the Senate during the 13th Congress had failed to publicize its rules of procedure on conducting legislative inquiries.

“As held by this honorable court in the case of Romulo L. Neri vs the Senate committee on accountability of public officers...: ‘It is incumbent upon the Senate to [make] public the rules for its legislative inquiries in each Congress or otherwise make the published rules clearly state that [they] shall be effective in subsequent Congresses,’” Bolante said, quoting from the Sept. 4, 2008, Supreme Court decision.

He added: “In the case at bar, the Senate of the 13th Congress failed to publish its rules prior to the issuance of the [arrest] order ... The Senate merely published its rules in two newspapers of general circulation on Dec. 1, 2006, as can be seen in the official website of the Senate.

“For this reason ... the subject proceedings which resulted in the issuance of the contempt order and/or order of arrest ... are procedurally infirm.”

Bolante also argued that only court judges could issue a warrant of arrest.

And even if the Senate arrest order is valid, it has become moot because the chamber’s committees on agriculture and on public accountability have already concluded their investigation, he said.

He insisted that the Senate concluded its inquiry when the two committees issued a final report on March 1, 2006.

But in that report, the two committees said that while they are terminating the hearings, the issue will not be closed until Bolante testifies.

Balajadia showed reporters a copy of the order authorizing him to arrest Bolante.

The order, signed by then Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr., chair of the Senate committee on agriculture and food, and Sen. Joker Arroyo, then chair of the blue ribbon committee, reads:

“Bolante is hereby cited in contempt of the committees and ordered arrested and detained in the Office of the Senate Sergeant at Arms, until such time that he will appear and give his testimony.”

Members of the Office of the Senate Sergeant at Arms met with officials of the Department of Justice, National Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Immigration and NAIA Tuesday morning to “coordinate” efforts toward a “smooth” turnover of Bolante.

“[The meeting centered] on how we will be able to get Joc-joc Bolante, so after the procedures for a deportee are done by the DoJ, they will give Joc-joc to [the Senate team that] will be waiting in the customs area,” Balajadia said.

According to Balajadia, Bolante will be escorted by US marshals when he deplanes.

“The US marshals will have to see to it that [they hand him] over to the DoJ, the proper agency. He can’t be turned over to just anybody,” Balajadia said.

Usually, the NBI Interpol coordinates with US marshals whenever a fugitive lands on or leaves Philippine soil.

The NBI said Bolante would not be treated as a criminal in the absence of charges filed against him before local courts.

Ricardo Diaz, chief of staff of the NBI deputy director for intelligence service, told reporters that collecting Bolante from the airport would be routine.

“He will not be treated differently from other removed persons,” Diaz said.

Diaz, along with the NBI-NAIA supervising agent Dave Seguinal and two immigration officers, was assigned by NBI Director Nestor Mantaring to receive Bolante from the US marshals.

Only after “processing” can Bolante be handed over to the Senate team, Balajadia said.

He said Bolante would travel by land to the Senate building in Pasay City.

“I will receive him here [at the Senate],” said Balajadia, a retired major general. “He will be placed in the detention room.”

Balajadia is counting on Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez to fulfill his end of the bargain.

“He approved of [the Senate arresting Bolante],” Balajadia said, citing Gonzalez’s radio interview in which the latter said: “We have nothing to do with him after we do our procedures.”

No party

Bolante’s return will be a non-event for his family.

In fact, his house in the posh Ayala Alabang village in Muntinlupa City showed no sign that his homecoming would be festive.

“We were told that his entire family was strictly directed to shun media interviews and not to prepare for his return from the US,” a neighbor, who asked not to be named for security reasons, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net).

The house at the corner of Ma. Cristina and San Juanico Streets looked uninhabited at noon Tuesday.

Adorned by ornamental plants and palm trees, the property was acquired by Bolante before he was involved in the P728-million fertilizer fund controversy, the neighbor said, adding that the house now cost around P80 million.

No worries

Ms Arroyo is not worried about Bolante’s homecoming, and her political adviser Gabriel Claudio said Malacañang would not interfere in his testimony on the fertilizer fund scam.

“I can’t see it because I was with her in China,” Press Secretary Jesus Dureza said when asked if the President was worried.

After returning Monday night from a five-day trip to China, Ms Arroyo presided over a Cabinet meeting in Malacañang Tuesday.

“[Bolante’s homecoming] wasn’t discussed by the Cabinet,” Dureza told reporters. With reports from Dona Z. Pazzibugan, and Marlon Ramos, Jeannette I. Andrade and TJ Burgonio