|
For the past 17 years, The Filipino Express has provided the Filipino American community the best news, arts and entertainment coverage from around the United States and the Philippines.
|
|
This website includes selected articles from this week's edition of the Filipino Express. Not all the stories published in the printed version appear on this site.
|
|
|
|
To tell us what you think about Filipino Express Online or to comment on the stories published here, E-mail us at Filexpress@aol.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
DOUSED PASSION. It may be raining hard in New York-New Jersey area, but in the Philippines, water is coming out of cannons which the police use to break up a protest by militant students near the Malacanang Palace. The protesters were demanding the ouster of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. (MNSwire photo)
|
|
|
|
MANILA --- The US Department of Justice could charge more Filipino politicians suspected of conspiring with Filipino American Leandro Aragoncillo in stealing confidential documents from the White House and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Bureau of Investigation said.
Ricardo Diaz, chief of the Interpol desk at the NBI, said the US justice department probers have leads linking more politicians in the Philippines to Aragoncillo.
“They will seriously prosecute not only Aragoncillo but also those in conspiracy with him. Charges will be filed against officials in the Philippines,” Diaz said.
But a source in New York close to Arragoncillo said the former FBI analyst have links with officials from the Arroyo government.
The source, who refused to be identified, said full disclosure of recipients of the “stolen” classified information may end up embarrassing President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
“It could be an embarrassment really,” the source told The Filipino Express after several Philippine officials began issuing statements they want recipients of the classified information publicly identified.
Initially Diaz said the FBI is looking into the possibility that two former Philippine officials and a high-level government official have conspired with Aragoncillo.
Aragoncillo was arrested last month along with former Philippine National Police official Michael Ray Aquino on charges of espionage.
The FBI discovered that Aragoncillo has been stealing confidential papers from its headquarters in Fort Monmouth in New Jersey and has also been passing the information to Aquino and three prominent Filipinos.
Diaz said the US justice department believes that aside from the three, Aragoncillo had more conspirators in the country.
“They said they are widening their investigation because there could be more Philippine politicians that allegedly received confidential information,” Diaz said.
Diaz said the FBI agents are now focusing on those who hired Aragoncillo to steal classified US documents.
“They already have evidence that they [the politicians] received information [through] [e-mail] accounts [of Aragoncillo],” said Diaz.
In the interview, Diaz said US authorities may not only investigate the bank accounts of Aragoncillo and Aquino in the US but they can also look into some Philippine bank accounts.
This can be done through the mutual legal assistance agreement between the Philippines and the United States, Diaz said.
“They (US probers) are now focusing if there was a money trail. They are looking for the source of funds,” Diaz added.
The US Department of Justice refocused its investigation after discovering that Aragoncillo also stole documents from the White House.
In the interview, Diaz said the NBI is still not privy to the confidential documents that Aragoncillo allegedly stole from the White House during his stint as a security officer of US Vice-President Richard Cheney.
“[The US Department of Justice] is very silent on the case,” Diaz said.
Earlier NBI Director Reynaldo Wycoco said that US authorities will spare no one in their espionage investigation of Aragoncillo and Aquino.
Wycoco and other Filipino officials had met with their Washington, DC counterparts at the FBI and the US Department of Justice to discuss and coordinate on the investigation of the alleged US espionage ring that involved Filipino nationals.
In a statement from Washington, the NBI director said that US authorities emphasized in the meeting that they will vigorously pursue the case, considering that the material stolen by the principals were US classified documents, and that the security of the White House itself had been violated. (MNS with Merpu Roa)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Leandro Aragoncillo |
|
|
|
|
Jersey City, NEW JERSEY --- Concerned about the arrest of Filipino American Leandro Aragoncillo, who was charged with spying for a foreign government, the National Federation of Filipino Americans Association (NaFFA) has rallied behind the former FBI analyst, calling for the protection of his rights.
Federal investigators accused Aragoncillo of breaching security at the White House, using his top secret clearance to steal classified documents from its computers and allegedly sending it to opposition leaders in the Philippines who were plotting a coup to overthrow the Arroyo administration.
Filipino Americans attending the NaFFAA conference in Troy, Michigan approved a resolution asking the US government to respect Aragoncillo’s rights to due process. and called for an expeditious investigation and a fair trial.
Some Filipinos in the NaFFA conference in Michigan compared Aragoncillo’s case to other Asian Americans, specifically scientist Wen Ho Lee and chaplain James Yee.
Wen Ho was charged and imprisoned for espionage for allegedly passing classified documents to China. He was later found innocent. Yee allegedly spied at Guantanamo prison camp.
NaFFAA National Chair Loida Nicolas Lewis noted that charges against them were dropped for lack of evidence. “But those charges have an insidious effect of silencing an immigrant community because we are more vulnerable to these kinds of accusations, and we carry a greater burden of proving ourselves as law-abiding citizens,” Lewis said.
For other NaFFAA members, Aragoncillo’s arrest has a “chilling effect”, particularly on immigrant communities.
Lewis added that NaFFAA would work closely with other civil rights organizations in educating law enforcement agencies, the media, the American public and the Filipino community about the need to be vigilant in the face of threats to civil liberties.
She urged Filipino Americans to speak out strongly -- and not acquiesce in silence -- against government actions that tend to create a climate of intimidation and fear.
In presenting the resolution, NaFFAA Regional Chairman Ed Navarra emphasized the need to “ vigorously protect” Aragoncillo’s civil rights.
“We are neither condoning nor condemning what he has been accused of doing. But in this country, a person is innocent until proven guilty. We simply want to ensure that his rights as an American citizen are protected,” Navarra said.
Aragoncillo, 46, and Michael Ray Aquino, 39, were arrested in New Jersey on Sept. 10 and are being held without bail. Aragoncillo retired in 2004 after 21 years in the Marines and began working for the FBI as an intelligence analyst. Aragoncillo also worked at the White House in 1999, when Al Gore was vice president He allegedly took classified documents while he worked in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
NEW YORK --- Former top Philippines police official Michael Ray Aquino has been indicted by US federal prosecutors for spying and conspiring with an ex-FBI officer to pass on classified documents to Philippine officials.
Michael Ray Aquino, 39, was charged with conspiracy and acting as an unregistered foreign agent. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.
The classified documents, including assessments of Philippine politicians, were reportedly used by President Gloria Arroyo’s opponents to try and unseat her.
Aquino, an ally of senior opposition politicians, was arrested at his New York residence in Queens on September 10. He is accused of passing 150 classified and sensitive documents to three public figures, each identified only as “a former high-level national public official in the Philippines.”
The former FBI officer, Leandro Aragoncillo, 46, was also arrested on September 10 and is accused of using the agency’s database to download the documents and giving them to Aquino.
Court documents reveal Aragoncillo, a Philippine-born US citizen, is talking to prosecutors “in an attempt to finalize a plea agreement.”
The FBI said on October 5 it was expanding its investigation of Aragoncillo, a 21-year US Marine veteran, to determine if he stole documents from the White House.
Aragoncillo started working at the White House in the vice-president’s office in 1999, while it was occupied by Al Gore, and worked there for 31 months. ABC News reported that Aragoncillo admitted to federal investigators that he had spied after Dick Cheney came to office.
According to the indictment, Aragoncillo passed classified documents to Aquino between February and August this year using cellphone text and e-mail messages. They included assessments of the political situation in the Philippines and political leaders.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who lost to Mrs. Arroyo in last year’s presidential elections, has said Aquino sent him some reports, but they contained information available in the media.
Aquino, a former police intelligence officer, served directly under Lacson when the senator was national police chief in the 1998-2001 administration of President Joseph Estrada. Shortly after Estrada was ousted in a military-backed popular uprising in 2001, Aquino moved to the United States where he worked as a registered nurse.
He was initially arrested in March for overstaying a tourist visa. The FBI began to investigate him as a potential spy after Aragoncillo appeared at an immigration office in New York, identifying himself as an FBI officer and a friend of Aquino’s interested in the status of his case.
That led prosecutors to audit the FBI’s database to see which documents Aragoncillo had retrieved.
Aragoncillo was discharged honorably from the Marines on September 30, 2004, according to a press release issued by the Marine Corps on September 12. He was awarded medals for good conduct and humanitarian service. (MNS)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Zamboanga City, PHILIPPINES --- The United States on has announced a $10 million reward for information that could help capture or kill Indonesian Islamic terrorist Dulmatin, an al-Qaeda-trained electronics expert thought to be one of the masterminds of the 2002 Bali bombings.
The $10 million bounty for Dulmatin is second only to the $25 million offered by the US for Osama bin Laden and Iraq insurgency leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
A spokesman for the main Muslim separatist group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)said here on October 7 that Dulmatin is hiding out in the Philippines.
Washington has also offered a one million dollar reward for Umar Patek, another Indonesian JI militant who is also believed to be hiding out in Mindanao..
In Manila, Presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye said the Arroyo administration welcomes the 10-million-dollar US bounty on the head of Dulmatin.
Bunye said Manila hoped the reward offer would help capture Dulmatin, who is believed to be receiving shelter from Khdadday Janjalani, leader of the local Muslim militant group Abu Sayyaf.
“The bounty offered by the US government will definitely drive more civilians and more communities to the manhunt,” Bunye said in a statement.
“These efforts underscore our strong alliance with the US in the fight against terror as well as our partnership with our neighbors to get the Bali bombers and their cohorts,” he added.
Eid Kabalu. MIL:F spokesman, said Dulmatin was with the senior leader of militant group Abu Sayyaf, Khadaffy Janjalani, as well as another alleged member of Jemaah Islamiyah, Umar Patek.
Kabalu said that Dulmatin, Patek and Janjalani had been together in central Mindano when the Philippines military launched an operation to try to catch them in July, adding that all three apparently got away.
“Based on our operations, Dulmatin and Patek are in Mindanao but we do not know what place because they fled from the latest operations,” said Kabalu.
Dulmatin is believed to have been one of the masterminds of the 2002 bombings that killed 202 people on the Indonesian island of Bali. The JI is also being blamed for last weekís Bali bomb attacks that left at least 20 dead
Since the MILF signed a ceasefire with Manila in 2001, it has been helping the government track militants from Abu Sayyaf.
The Abu Sayyaf is a small group of Islamic militants, featured on the US State Departmentís list of foreign terrorist organizations. It is wanted for a spate of kidnappings, murders and bomb attacks, including a passenger ferry blast that killed more than 100 people on Manila Bay last year.
Security analysts say the JI has been increasingly building links with the Abu Sayyaf and taking advantage of the Philippinesí porous southern borders to plot attacks in the region. (MNS)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
