Leftist lawmakers say DOJ witness lying

Five lawmakers facing rebellion charges on Tuesday branded the testimony of the witness presented by the government as “absolute lies." Rep. Satur Ocampo (Bayan Muna) said Jaime Fuentes lied when he claimed that Ocampo and other party-list lawmakers and former social welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman conspired with military adventurists and leftist groups in plotting to destabilize the government. State prosecutors presented Fuentes during the preliminary investigation on rebellion cases filed against more than 50 people. He named Ocampo and party-list Representatives Teodoro Casiño (Bayan Muna), Joel Virador (Bayan Muna) Rafael Mariano (Anakpawis) Crispin Belltran (Anakpawis) and Liza Maza (Gabriela) and Soliman as among those involved in the alleged destabilization plot. Fuentes claimed that he was the chief security officer of Vicente Ladlad of Bayan Muna. Ladlad said the accusations of Fuentes were “all lies and fabrications." "The false charges are part and parcel of a badly scripted plot to persecute progressives and other people who are critical of the Arroyo government," Ladlad said. “I vehemently deny the military’ accusation that I am the secretary of the National United Front Commission of the Communist Party of the Philippines, nor was I the former secretary of the Southern Tagalog Regional Commission," he said in a statement. He said he has never hired a body guard. “I go to my office and attend to other activities all by myself. I drive my car and many people can attest to this plain fact. Fuentes' claim that he was my security aide is a complete lie by a manufactured ‘witness’," Ladlad said. He said he met Fuentes in 1986 after the Aquino government released political detainees during the Marcos regime. He said he never heard from him again until his appearance at the Department of Justice on Monday. “At times, I can still chuckle at the great fantasy created by the government's security forces. But I am enraged by the viciousness and remorselessness of those behind the plot to inflict havoc on the lives of progressives like me. I can only take comfort in that I am, for now, only being persecuted, while the activists in the provinces are being killed by the armed minions of the state. But the extra-judicial killings enrage me all the more," Ladlad said. Mariano said the affidavit of Fuentes submitted to the DOJ was “a product of the police's malicious and dirty imagination." “He is a paid witness. He was hired by the government to pin us down," he added. - GMANews.TV