MANILA, Philippines -- Making headway in its nearly two-month-long search, the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan has found P1.1 billion worth of assets in the Jose Velarde bank account of deposed president Joseph Estrada.

Edgardo Urieta, the court’s chief sheriff, confirmed that the shares of stock and receivables in Estrada’s account at Equitable-PCIBank, now Banco de Oro-EPCI Inc., were intact.

“This office is now in the process of consultation with Banco de Oro officials regarding the course of action in the delivery or selling at public auction of the shares of stocks of the IMA Trust Account… in order to satisfy the P189,700,000 as stated in the writ of execution in the Jose Velarde account,” Urieta said in his report Thursday to the court’s Special Division.

The IMA (Investment Management Account) is part of the Jose Velarde account.

A source at the court said the sheriff would meet with bank officials next week to determine if the assets “could be turned liquid.”

Estrada distanced himself from the account.

“That’s a spin,” he said in a call to the Philippine Daily Inquirer to dispute reports he owned the account. “Not a single cent belongs to me. That belongs to the Jose Velarde account.”

After Estrada was convicted of plunder in September last year, the Sandiganbayan sheriff was ordered to seize in favor of the government P189.700 million in the Jose Velarde account, and P545.291 million in Estrada’s Erap Muslim Youth Foundation.

Jueteng payoffs

The money represented payoffs from the illegal numbers game “jueteng,” and commissions from the trading of Belle Corp. shares using funds from the Government Service Insurance System and Social Security System.

Since then, the sheriff had not had any luck in its search for the Jose Velarde account, managing to confirm that only P2,770.69 was left in the savings account.

Records dug up

A source said the sheriff’s office was aware of the IMA account, but forgot where to look for it. It dug up its records, and found old reports of the bank on the account.

The sheriff’s office, however, has recovered some P215 million in the Erap Muslim Youth Foundation, and has to recover at least P330 million more.

The Sandiganbayan convicted Estrada of two counts of plunder last Sept. 12, sentenced him up to 40 years in prison and ordered the forfeiture of his ill-gotten wealth.

Boracay mansion

Two months later, the anti-graft court issued a writ of execution to the sheriff to confiscate the funds in the Jose Velarde account and in the Muslim Youth Foundation, and to seize the so-called “Boracay mansion” in New Manila, Quezon City.

Estrada was pardoned by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in October, but this did not exempt him from the forfeiture proceedings, the court said.

In response to a request from Urieta, Gerardo Banzon, head of Banco de Oro’s legal advisory and research department, confirmed on Dec. 14, 2007, that the items in IMA Trust Account No. 101-78056-1 were intact, quoting its Trust Department.

Waterfront and Wellex shares

Banzon said the assets held in trust in the bank as of Oct. 2, 2002, were a promissory note and chattel mortgage worth P500 million, 450 million shares in Waterfront Philippines (now valued at P427.5 million at P0.95/share); 300 million shares in Wellex Industries (now valued at P84 million at P0.28/share), and a common trust fund investment amounting to P95.759 million.

Waterfront and Wellex are owned by Estrada’s friend, William Gatchalian.

Gatchalian’s name cropped up in Estrada’s impeachment trial in late 2000 and then in the hearings on the plunder case when his listed firm was alleged to have received a P500-million loan from Estrada through the Jose Velarde account.

‘Not mine’

The shares belonged to Gatchalian, Estrada insisted.

“Yes, I am aware of the account. And I’m aware that I don’t have a single cent from this account. I guaranteed that account (IMA Trust Account) to assure investors of the Jose Velarde account that they will be paid by William Gatchalian,” Estrada said.

“There’s nothing new about the account. It was just transferred to Banco de Oro,” he said. “They can all get it. It’s not mine.”

He said Gatchalian put up Waterfront shares as collateral when the businessman borrowed money from the account.

Estrada again linked Jaime Dichaves, a businessman who was also an accused in the plunder case, to the controversial account.

Elvira Ting, vice president of Wellex Group, said the loan the company obtained from Equitable-PCI Bank was legally documented.

The company borrowed P500 million from the Jose Velarde account, which she said belonged to Dichaves, with Wellex’s shares of stock as collateral.

“But the loan has been settled privately with Mr. Dichaves,” she said, adding that the company has yet to claim the collateral from the bank.

Collateral

“We will have to go to the bank and ask it about the requirements so the collateral can be released,” she told the Inquirer newspaper, parent company of INQUIRER.net.

Urieta wrote Banzon on Dec. 4 last year to check if the items in the account were still intact.

The deputy commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue ordered in January 2001 the manager of Equitable-PCIBank to place under its custody any goods, chattels, or personal property, among others, of Estrada and his wife, former Sen. Luisa Ejercito, to stop them from disposing of these assets.