The lawyer of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Wednesday accused President Aquino of cutting a deal to pin her down for electoral fraud and corruption in exchange for downgrading murder charges against Zaldy Ampatuan and a pardon later.
In a phone interview, Arroyo lawyer Raul Lambino said that Zaldy’s “choreographed” exposés on his client in the last two days was his “main bargaining chip” to convince the President to give him a chance to escape what he called an “absolutely certain guilty verdict.”
The former governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao is facing conspiracy charges with his father and brother as masterminds in the massacre of 58 people in their Maguindanao hometown in November 2009.
Game plan
“Governor Zaldy is haggling so he can be charged with a lesser offense so he could be eligible for executive clemency from President Aquino. That is their game plan,” said Lambino.
Lambino said the timing of Ampatuan’s exposé was doubtful considering that he could have made these revelations against Arroyo and the former First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo shortly after the election when Aquino’s trust rating was sky high.
“Now that the President’s ratings are slipping, suddenly Ampatuan is singing like a canary and testifying that the former President is responsible for everything even if he had no personal knowledge or direct information. As a murder conspirator, his credibility is not only suspect, it is shattered,” said Lambino.
Lambino also noted a glaring pattern in the exposés of Ampatuan—take all of the scandals that happened in the past administration and blame it all on the President.
“That is obviously what this administration wants from him and he is giving what they want even if it is based on hearsay or coaching from his handlers,” said Lambino who noted that Zaldy had not made any testimony that he personally witnessed the President making such orders.
“How can he prove that the former President issued the order or took the cuts he claimed were made or received by people other than my client? This is a purely political gamble. If he wanted to indict my client, he should file charges against my client in the proper court,” said Lambino.
He said this pattern was evident in the sudden appearance of the fugitive Maguindanao elections supervisor Lintang Bedol a day after Zaldy hinted that there were other people willing to come out and validate his testimony against Arroyo.
“Why did Bedol wait this long to make his testimony? Like Ampatuan, he has no direct or personal knowledge that the former President gave the order to cheat in the 2007 elections,” Lambino said.
‘Moronic’
Lambino also dismissed as “moronic” the view of the President’s Cabinet men—specifically Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo and presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda—that Zaldy could be accepted in the witness protection program without being declared a state witness.
“If he (Zaldy) only wanted protection for himself and his family, he deserved police protection even if he was part of the most gruesome mass killing in recent memory. But he cannot be covered by the WPP which is why Justice Secretary (Leila) de Lima has distanced herself away and shut the door on that.”
Lambino said the President’s men were clearly in “damage control” mode after their gambit to have Zaldy as a state witness blew up in their faces due to the strong resistance from the massacre victims.
“I really don’t understand this administration that prides itself on walking the ‘tuwid na daan.’ Why is it willing to sacrifice the Maguindanao massacre case just for political expediency?” asked Lambino.