Davidson Bangayan. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—After insisting to Justice Secretary Leila de Lima last week that he only had one name, David Bangayan—suspected to be big-time rice smuggler named David Tan—was found to have admitted in a legal document in 2005 that he was also known by that controversial name.
The document was an affidavit that Bangayan executed in April 2005 in a libel complaint that he filed against Federation of Philippine Industries Inc., president Jesus Arranza and four others.
Bangayan sued Arranza after the latter alleged in a published report that Bangayan had swindled two foreigners who engaged the services of his scrap metal company.
Arranza gave a copy of the Bangayan complaint-affidavit and another document to De Lima on Tuesday at a meeting he had sought with the justice secretary.
“It’s strong proof,” De Lima said of Arranza’s documents, adding that it would “help in shedding light on this issue.”
She wondered why Bangayan had insisted to her that he had no other name than what he was already using.
“How come in that document, the complaint-affidavit that he signed, subscribed and sworn to, it said otherwise?” she said.
Bangayan had gone to the National Bureau of Investigation to deny he was the Tan being tagged as a big-time rice smuggler. He was released by the NBI.
De Lima said a second document that Arranza presented to her was a certification that Bangayan had attached to his complaint-affidavit. It was from a company that had been doing business with Bangayan’s company. The company certified that it had been doing business with Bangayan, “who is also known as David Tan,” and that it had no problem with the latter’s company.
De Lima said she will wait for the NBI’s final report on the evidence against Tan, including cooperatives that had dealings with him.
Arranza said he was not accusing Bangayan of anything, but only saying that Bangayan and Tan were one and the same person.
“I am not linking anyone…It’s up to the NBI to check the records and find out what his accountabilities are,” he told reporters.
“My point is that the name of David Tan was mentioned in the Senate hearing to be one of the financiers of the anomalous act,” he said.
According to Arranza, when he heard from news reports that Bangayan was being implicated as Tan, he went through documents in the libel case that Bangayan had filed against him.
He said the libel case was dismissed by a Manila regional trial court.
In Bangayan’s complaint affidavit, he said he was one of the stockholders and officers of the Advanced Scrap Specialist Corp. (ASSC).