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Friday, March 29, 2024

Solon: Arrest Bautista for Senate snub

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SENATOR  Francis Escudero has asked the Senate to issue a warrant of arrest for former Commission on Elections chairman Andres Bautista, after declaring him in contempt for failing to attend a committee hearing on possible violations of the Anti-Money Laundering Act.

“I have requested the Senate to issue a warrant for Chairman Bautista so he can be arrested anytime when he arrives in the country. The committee is compelled to do this after his obvious defiance of the Senate orders,” said Escudero, chairman of the Senate committee on banks, financial institutions and currencies.

He added that the only way Bautista could expunge himself was to issue a waiver on bank secrecy for himself and his siblings, who are his co-depositors.

Escudero said the former poll chief has clearly shown his attempt to stifle the proceedings. His committee issued a subpoena to Bautista on Jan. 23, ordering him to appear on Feb. 12 before the committee otherwise he would be held in contempt and arrested.

In a letter sent to Escudero’s committee, Bautisa said he did not receive any invitation because he had been out of the country since Nov. 21 of last year.

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“I understand from news reports that a subpoena has been issued because of my non-appearance in the hearing. In this regard, I respectfully ask that the subpoena be recalled since I never received the invitation” his letter stated.

Bautista also told the committee that he would be pleased to answer in writing any questions the committee might pose.

Bautista said he was out of the country“to explore professional opportunities and, more importantly, seek assistance for certain medical challenges.”

But Escudero said records from the Bureau of Immigration, showed the former poll chief left the country on Oct. 28, 2017 and arrived from Singapore on Nov. 1, 2017.

Escudero also considered Bautista’s letter a “ruse,” insisting that there was no good faith in it.

“He is a former chairman of a constitutional commission; he has no legal and formal address here in the country. That is not normal,” Escudero said.

He said Bautista should have given the committee a forwarding address where they can communicate with him but so far he has not done that.

“That is the very opposite of what he had said in the past that he will squarely face any and all allegations lodged against him in any forum,” Escudero said.

 Bautista’s siblings, Susan Afan and Martin Bautista, were also invited by the committee but both failed to show up.

Afan wrote the committee that she could not attend the hearing because of prior commitments and that as a private citizen, she had no knowledge of the Anti-Money Laundering Law and thus begged to be excluded from the committee hearing.

“If they don’t want to attend, they don’t want to go public, they should execute a waiver. We can’t compel them to execute a waiver, but we can compel their attendance to the hearing. They can tell the committee that they will not issue a waiver, they can invoke whatever rights they have under the laws and we will respect that. But they cannot do that through letters alone and hide behind them,” Escudero said.

He also challenged Bautista to come out of hiding.

“If he is not afraid of something, he should not hide. If he is not capable of personally attending he can talk to his siblings for all of them to execute a waiver and we will continue the proceedings without them,” the senator said.

Lorna Kapunan, the lawyer of Patricia Bautista, the estranged wife of former Comelec chief, said she feared he would no longer return to the country.

“Flight is not consistent with innocence. It is guilt that is consistent with flight,” she said.

Patricia accused her estranged husband of amassing nearly P1 billion in unexplained wealth and of owning more than 30 bank accounts with the Luzon Development Bank’s amounting to P329 million.

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