'ODILAO GAVE ME P100T'

The man who spilled the beans on the supposed 1993 cocaine deal involving
David Odilao Jr. yesterday made another accusation--that the former customs
official paid him P100,000 to keep silent.

In his counter-affidavit submitted to a perjury complaint filed before the
Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor, former Philippine Constabulary (PC)
member Manuel Omega said the money was given to him at the Bureau of
Customs headquarters in 1993 through an employee named Edgar Galeos.

He said this happened days after the supposed deal where he, lawyer Paul
Alcazaren and Mark Weigel, son of former Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Ernest Weigel
Jr., delivered over 60 kilos of cocaine, smuggled from Singapore to Cebu
via the Mactan airport, to a Chinese man and his daughter at Cebu Midtown
Hotel.

It was after this payoff, Omega said, that he signed an affidavit clearing
Odilao of any involvement in the smuggling of drugs. Reports about the
smuggling and the delivery of drugs had reached media at that time.

But Odilao, in an interview last night, called Omega's new allegation
'laughable' and the 'product of a sick mind,' adding that there is no way
the public will believe him now.

He asked why he would give P100,000 to a person who had conned him and
Alcazaren in a bogus investment in Camiguin.

He pointed out that the source of all the allegations he and Alcazaren are
facing was his refusal to give P10,000 to National Bureau of Investigation
(NBI) agents Renato Mandawe and Antonio Vargas, whom he accused of
soliciting the amount in exchange for keeping Omega quiet.

"If I didn't pay P10,000, what makes you think that I'd pay P100,000?" he
stressed.

He said Omega is clearly just trying to come up with a reason to downplay
the effects of his 1993 affidavit, which says he knows absolutely nothing
about any cocaine deal.

"First, they said the affidavit did not exist. Then, they said that the
affidavit was a forgery. Now, they admit that the affidavit exists but that
it was executed after a payment of P100,000. What are they going to say
next?" he said.

As this developed, lawyer Inocencio dela Cerna yesterday expressed his
intent to pursue a civil case against Odilao.

He wants Odilao held for having "invaded the privacy of his client" (Omega)
by submitting before the anti-graft office, in a hearing last Tuesday, an
otherwise confidential document showing the latter's criminal records.

"This violates the rule of privacy because this was given even without the
authority of my client," he stressed. "You can conduct a background
investigation on your own, but if you get it from someone else, it becomes
irregular."

He said he might also go after former NBI 7 Director Anthony Liongson who,
he claimed, admitted before the ombudsman that the records came from him.

Odilao said de la Cerna's statements do not faze him. He challenged the
lawyer instead to check on him and Alcazaren to determine "who are the
criminals."

"This is a public document. This was only sent to us by some well-meaning
people from Manila. The source is not from the NBI but this is an NBI
document," he said.

The document, marked Exhibit 1 by anti-graft office stenographer Emily
Mendoza, linked Omega's name to a 1973 estafa case in Calbayog, a 1968
ill-treatment case in Baguio, a 1974 slight physical injuries case in
Calbayog and a 1975 unjust vexation case, also in Calbayog.

NBI agent Vargas' name was linked to a 1977 less serious physical injuries
case in Negros Occidental, a 1987 homicide case also in the same province,
a 1992 double physical injuries case in Cebu City, a 1992 attempted
homicide case in Talisay, a 1993 robbery case in South Cotabato, a 1996
frustrated murder case in Negros Occidental and a 1997 attempted murder
case in Talisay City.

The document, however, does not indicate whether the cases filed against
the two are still pending.