Sabio orders tighter security at PCGG office

Dispensing his functions from Senate detention, Chairman Camilo Sabio of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) ordered Monday tighter security at the agency's Mandaluyong office. Domingo Regalario, a security guard at the PCGG office, prevented news coverage teams from entering the premises. He said the order emanated from the office of the PCGG chairman. Interviewed during the same morning, Sabio said the restrictions were set up to prevent a repeat of last Thursday's purported "forcible entry" of Senate security on the office of the Philippine Communications Satellite Corp. (Philcomsat) in Makati City. During a recent Senate hearing, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile presented documentary evidence on the transactions of summoned Philcomsat executives. However, lawyer Rene Saguisag, counsel for three defiant Philcomsat executives, noted that it was "anomalously coincidental" that Enrile's documents were the same as the ones supposedly "stolen" from the Philcomsat office at Pacific Star building in Makati. Rene Balajadia, chief of the Senate's Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms, has maintained that the "break in" was carried out by security aides of Philcomsat executive Erlinda Ilusorio-Bildner and not by his men. Sabio said the media teams were not allowed to enter the PCGG office since management has yet to designate someone to oversee day-to-day operations. The PCGG chair has been under Senate custody since Tuesday noon. He is expected to appear for the third time at the Senate hearing on Tuesday (tomorrow) afternoon. Fugitive Commissioners Ricardo Abcede, Narciso Nario, Tereso Javier and Nicasio Conti all decided to skip flag raising ceremonies at the PCGG on Monday morning, Regalario told GMA News. Nario, Javier and Conti have been staying inside an undisclosed safehouse. Abcede, meanwhile, has been hiding at a different location. -GMANews.TV