Atong Ang pays graft court P25M
Charlie “Atong" Ang, a co-accused in the plunder case against deposed president Joseph Estrada, paid six checks worth P 25 million to the Sandigabayan late Friday. The payment was made to settle in full the civil liabilities imposed against Ang by the graft court. Ang earlier pleaded guilty to corruption and bribery - a move freeing him from a possible 40-year or lifetime sentence for plundering state coffers. The payment will not however release Ang from detention at the Metro Manila District Jail in Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City, because the Sandiganbayan’s Special Division has yet resolved his motion for probation. The payment was composed of two Metrobank checks for P6 million and P7 million; two Philtrust Bank checks with a P4 million total; an Asia United Bank check for P5 million; and a Chinabank check for P3 million – all made payable to the Sandiganbayan. The P25 million represented the sum that Ang admitted to having pocketed out of the P130 million tobacco excise tax funds that he claimed to have delivered to the residence of deposed President Joseph Estrada in 1998. Rather than face the possibility of a life sentence as a co-accused of Estrada in a P4.1 billion plunder case, Ang struck a compromise deal with prosecutors and was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser offense. He was to a jail term of two years and four months to six years. His lawyers filed a petition for probation immediately after sentencing and asked that Ang’s 5 years and four months detention prior to his plea bargain deal be deducted from his sentence. However, Associate Justice Diosdado Peralta, pointed out that provisions of the Revised Penal Code do not cover Ang’s detention in the United States for more than four years during his extradition hearings. Peralta noted that the extradition treaty between the Philippines and the US did not specify policies on preventive imprisonment. Ang’s lawyers were given five days to submit the summary of their arguments in support of Ang’s probation bid. Prosecutors have already declared that they will not oppose Ang’s petition for probation. Ang fled to the US before Estrada’s ouster in January 2001 but he was arrested in a Las Vegas casino by American authorities and subsequently repatriated to face prosecution for plunder in November last year. -GMANews