FORMER senator Antonio Trillanes IV yesterday filed plunder and graft charges before the Department of Justice against former President Rodrigo Duterte, Sen. Christopher “Bong” Go, former Philippine Navy chief Robert Empedrad, and several others in connection with the Navy’s P16-billion purchase of two South Korean-made frigates.
Also included as respondents are Defense Undersecretary Raymund Elefante, former Budget Undersecretary Lloyd Christopher Lao, and several private individuals involved in what Trillanes described as the “anomalous implementation” of the multi-billion-peso frigate acquisition program.
Lawyer Salvador Panelo, who served as Chief Presidential Legal Counsel of the former president, said the charges are baseless and a mere rehash of Trillanes’ allegations.
In the complaint filed yesterday, Trillanes said the charges were based on “information gathered from the investigation conducted by the Senate in 2018, as well as testimonies from officials privy to the manipulation done by Mr. Duterte and Bong Go to favor a private contractor,” Trillanes said in his complaint.
To recall, the procurement of two state-of-the-art frigates for the Navy was initiated by Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, as part of efforts to modernize the Armed Forces amid growing tension with China in the West Philippine Sea. The procurement contract was signed just before the Duterte administration assumed office in 2016.
The controversy started when senior Navy officers questioned the contractor’s proposal to change the brands of several equipment, particularly the Combat Management System (CMS), to be installed in the frigates.
The Navy favored the Thales Tacticos CMS which is in use by more than two dozen navies worldwide.
Instead of the Thales Tacticos CMS, the two frigates — now known as the Rizal class frigates — were fitted with the Hanwa Naval Shield 2 CMS which is used only by the navies of South Korea and the Royal Malaysian Navy.
Trillanes said the Naval Shield CMS is “more inferior, and, therefore, much cheaper brands, which was in violation of the terms of the signed contract.”
“Then PN Flag-Officer-In-Command Vice Admiral Ronald Mercado demanded that the contractor follow the contract to the letter, which resulted to a stalemate in the implementation. Because of this, the PN officers in charge of the frigate project were summoned to the office of then Special Assistant to the President Bong Go in Malacañang, where the anomalous contractor’s proposal was presented,” Trillanes said.
“After this, then Secretary of National Defense Delfin Lorenzana also sent Vice Admiral Mercado a copy of the same contractor’s proposal with a marginal note, saying that it came from Bong Go, and that they should study the same,” he added.
Mercado objected to the changes in the contract which led to his relief from his post.
He was replaced by Empedrad who, Trillanes said, promptly approved the “illegal changes in the contract, thus bringing in additional billions in profit to the private contractor.”
Trillanes said Go’s intervention in the project was confirmed by Duterte himself during his 2019 State of the Nation Address, where he said that he instructed the latter to intervene in the Navy’s frigate project.
With this, Trillanes said the respondents violated Section 2 of Republic Act No. 7080, as amended by RA 7659, or The Act Defining and Penalizing the crime of Plunder; and RA 3019, or The Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.
“The frigate acquisition project’s intention was to procure two state-of-the-art warships, but because of the boundless greed of Duterte and Bong Go, our country has been stripped of its opportunity to drastically enhance our national security capability,” Trillanes, a former Navy officer, said.
“Para kang umorder ng Mercedez Benz na sasakyan pero ang dineliver ay Mercedez Benz na kaha lang pero ang makina na nilagay ay pang-owner na jeep (It’s as if you ordered a Mercedes-Benz only for the supplier to deliver a Mercedes-Benz in name only but with an inferior engine),” he added.
Trillanes earlier filed plunder charges against Duterte and Go over supposedly anomalous projects during the previous administration.
Specifically, Trillanes charged Duterte with awarding Davao contracts worth over P6 billion from 2007 to 2018 to the construction company owned by Go’s father and sibling. — With Jocelyn Montemayor
