Zaldy Co's lawyer vows to sue authorities over seizure of vehicles

The camp of former Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Zaldy Co vowed Friday to file criminal charges against police officials for the alleged illegal and abusive seizure of the vehicles linked to Co and Sunwest Construction and Development Corp.

Atty. Ruy Rondain, counsel for Co, was referring to the vehicles allegedly seized by the Philippine National Police-Highway Patrol Group, different from the eight which were the subject of a search warrant secured by the Bureau of Customs.

Co is facing three charges of graft and malversation of public funds over the alleged substandard P289 million road flood control project in Oriental Mindoro.

“They got these [vehicles] forcibly without a search warrant. 34 [vehicles]. I asked them why, they said the LTO (Land Transportation Office) placed it under an alarm for being a hot car, [meaning] ninakaw. Sino ba nag-report na ninakaw 'yan? 'Yung owner? Eh kami ‘yung may-ari niyan. ‘Yung mga kumpanya at mga personal na kliyente ko. Sino nag-report na nakaw?” Rondain said in a Super Radyo dzBB interview.

(Who reported that these vehicles were stolen when these vehicles are owned by the companies and my client?)

“They confiscated the keys and barred these vehicles from being taken out of the garage. Effectively, they also confiscated the vehicles, too, because the owners cannot use them. Puwede ba ‘yun? Talagang abuso. Maghintay sila ng asunto, ng demanda. Abusive. Hinihingan ko ng authority, ang sabi utos lang raw. Puwede ba ‘yun?. That is state abuse,” he added.

(Is that allowed? That is really abuse. They should brace themselves for criminal complaints. I asked on what authority that the vehicles were seized and was told they were ordered to do so. Is that okay?)

Rondain said that aside from seizing the car keys, the drivers were detained by the police.

“They detained the drivers from 10 a.m. to almost midnight. That is also a violation. They said they weren’t detained because they did not allow the drivers to go home,” he said.

Asked on the nature of charges they plan to file, Rondain replied, “I won’t telegraph our moves but these are serious cases.”

The lawyer also questioned the BOC’s seizure order for nine vehicles, of which eight were seized, saying not all the vehicles are under the name of Co.

“Some of the vehicles belong to Mrs. Co, while the others are owned by the company. Sunwest Construction is not a respondent in a case here. Why seize these vehicles?” Rondain added.

In response, PNP-HPG spokesperson Police Lieutenant Nadame Malang clarified that the PNP-HPG only seized six vehicles of Co on the basis that these vehicles have been placed under alarm by the LTO.

“It is a pure law enforcement operation,” he said in a Super Radyo dzBB interview.

“If they see anything wrong with it, we will answer it before the courts,” he added.

Malang also said that the vehicles that the LTO placed under alarm are just six, not 34 as Rondain said.

“Six vehicles were placed by LTO under alarm, and we only implemented na dapat nakuha ‘yung mga unit na iyon, pero hindi po 34,” he said.

“Members of the media who were there saw these,” he added.

Malang said Co’s vehicles were seized over “inappropriate budget source" but did not say who reported to the LTO that these are hot or stolen cars. 

“Well, ‘yung mga [under] alarm po na 'yung sasakyan, initially po, ‘yung mga sasakyan po [na ito ay] from the companies na ginamit na po ni former Congressman Zaldy Co [ay sourced from] inappropriate budget,” he said.

(These vehicles under alarm were used by the companies, used by former Congressman Co off [an] inappropriate budget.)

Bureau of Customs Deputy Chief of Staff Chris Noel Bendijo, for his part, said the seizure order on the nine vehicles was done on suspicion of illegal importation.

“Regardless of under whose name the vehicles were registered, what we are looking at here is possible unlawful importation. That is the power of the Bureau of Customs. This is a different operation from that of the PNP-HPG,” Bendijo said in a separate Super Radyo dzBB interview.

“Our initial findings show that we did not find import entries for these vehicles, we learned that the vehicles were equipped with a bullet proofing system that cannot be done locally. That means that when these vehicles entered the country, they were already bullet proof and we did not find such a declaration. Those are initial findings but they can submit documents [to contest that],” he added. —AOL, GMA Integrated News