Plunder raps filed vs Baldoz, et al.

MANILA, Philippines—Former Solicitor General Francisco Chavez on Monday filed plunder charges against Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz and seven other former and incumbent officials of the Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration (OWWA) for allegedly funneling the agency’s funds to help the presidential bid of then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2004.

Chavez’s amended complaint with the Department of Justice was in connection to the supposed illicit diversion of some P550 million in OWWA funds to the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (Philhealth) which distributed health cards supposedly to boost Arroyo’s campaign.

Along with Baldoz, also charged were former Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas, Manuel Imson, Mina Figueroa, Caroline Rogge, Victorino Balais, Gregorio Oca and Virginia Pasalo.

“By schemingly facilitating the diversion of the OWWA funds for activities alien to its avowed purpose of directly and exclusively benefiting OFWs … respondents have fallen far short of the degree of fidelity to the trust reposed in them,” Chavez said in his 26-page amended complaint.

Chavez had earlier file a similar plunder complaint against Arroyo, former Foreign Affairs and Executive Secretary Alberto Romulo and then PhilHealth president Francisco Duque III and former OWWA administrator Virgilio Angelo.

The former solicitor general personally filed the amended complaint during the opening preliminary investigation of the case.

However, Arroyo and her co-accused were a no-show at the hearing which was reset to June 23 by the three-member DOJ panel of prosecutors.