Lawyer Rod Domingo asked to explain scam on claimants’ checks

A human rights group urged lawyer Rod Domingo to explain how checks for rights abuse victims ended up in the hands of impostors.

According to the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (Pahra), some of the checks that were in the care of Domingo’s office were encashed by fake claimants with the probable connivance of people “known” to Domingo, a cocounsel for the martial law victims.

Domingo was the sole repository of the list of claimants and the corresponding checks, so it was not far-fetched that the scheme was an “inside job,” Pahra said.

It said that Domingo should “clear the air the soonest possible time before all the goodwill and gratitude for the initial victory obtained by the victims would be significantly eroded by this recent anomaly.”

“We strongly recommend that you make public your office’s accountability, including the process of distribution, to exonerate people, including yourself, and the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) of any wrongdoing,” Pahra said in an open letter to Domingo.

The checks were part of the $10 million initial settlement that a US court approved to settle the award of damages to about 10,000 rights abuse victims who won a $2-billion class action suit against the estate of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1995.

Each of the 7,500 claimants—the number of victims who joined the class action suit had been reduced to this number because of questions of eligibility—was issued a check for P43,200, the equivalent of $1,000.

Pahra commended Domingo, however, for advising the banks to stop the payment of checks being encashed by dubious claimants and for conducting his own investigation of the matter.

Police last week arrested eight suspects who were caught trying to encash checks from legitimate claimants.

Domingo was initially included in the charge sheet but dropped for lack of sufficient basis to establish his participation.

Investigators are looking into Domingo’s connection with Edward Santiago and his wife, Marlene, alleged to be the masterminds.

Domingo said he personally knew the Santiagos, who he said had helped establish the identities of the Marcos victims, but who police said recruited senior citizens in the slums to pose as legitimate victims.

The false claimants, armed with fake postal IDs with the names of legitimate victims and their pictures, would encash checks under the account name “RA Swift FAO Human Rights Case,” and later deliver the money to the Santiagos, who would pay them P1,500 for each check.

CHR Chair Loretta Ann Rosales said the commission was doing its own investigation would ask Domingo to help.