Rep. Gary Alejano (Photo by AARON FAVILA / AP)
Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano declined to vouch for his fellow mutineer and now Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon, confirming claims of a rift among plotters of the 2003 Oakwood mutiny growing far and wide.
Claiming he did not know Faeldon well enough, Alejano said, “I cannot vouch for him. He should answer what he has to answer but I cannot conclude whether he is at fault or not.”
At the same time, Alejano disputed the claim of Faeldon before a congressional probe into corruption at the Bureau of Customs (BOC) that he had never been an official member of Magdalo.
Same battalion
“He was part of the Magdalo but we removed him from the group when he escaped in 2005,” Alejano said. “It created a rift between us but I was able to bring him back to the group as friends, not as part of the group anymore.”
“I was the one who recruited him. We were together in the Marine Corps. We were in the same battalion,” said Alejano, who started at the Philippine Marine Corps in 1995, three years after Faeldon.
The congressman said he and other Magdalo members were shocked in May last year that Faeldon would be joining the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte as customs commissioner.
Request for support
Alejano said Faeldon even approached him [last year] before he assumed office at the BOC and asked for support.
“He requested me to help him, because I have people,” Alejano said, adding he rejected the request out of principle.
Days later, Faeldon would later name Alejano’s former classmates at the Philippine Military Academy as his top aides in the bureau.
They are former military officers Milo Maestrecampo, Alvin Ebreo, James Layug and Gerardo Gambala, all leaders of the failed Oakwood mutiny, who are also being probed by Congress.
The Oakwood mutiny occurred on July 27, 2003, when 321 soldiers and several officers mutinied and occupied the luxurious Oakwood Premier apartment building in Makati City to oppose the administration of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
But, Alejano complained, Faeldon “went out of his way to malign Magdalo to protect and shield Mr. Duterte” even after Alejano unsuccessfully attempted to impeach the President last March.
“[For] every action, there should be corresponding responsibility … I’d rather say: let’s allow the investigation to uncover the truth,” the congressman said.
At the same time, however, Alejano vouched for Gambala and Maestrecampo: “I know these people. They are good people.”
Like Faeldon, the congressman said, both Gambala and Maestrecampo were leaders of the Magdalo but were removed in 2008 when they entered into a plea bargain agreement with the government.
“But regardless of whether they’re guilty or not, the fact that multibillion [pesos] worth of drugs entered the country through customs is something to be worried about,” he said.