ShareThisMANILA (PinoyNews) – Does re-electionist Sen. Loren Legarda has an undeclared condominium unit in Manhattan in New York City?
It appears the senator has a condo unit, an expensive one in Manhattan, which she acquired in 2006 if documents made known by one Louis Biraogo, a public interest advocate, are to be believed. The property was not declared in the senator’s yearly Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net worth from 2006 to 2010 and presumably declared only in 2011, it was alleged.
A Philippine newspaper exposed Legarda’s alleged property in US, quoting Biraogo. Legarda was not immediately available to comment on the Daily Tribune report but her supporters described it as campaign harassment.
LEGARDA
According to the report, Biraogo claimed that Legarda purchased on May 9, 2006 the condo unit at 77 Park Avenue, Manhattan for $700,000 or about P36 million. The area is where the Rockefellers and Trumps also have properties.
Biraogo asked if she had declared her dollar account in her SALns.
According to the report, a Youtube video has been making the rounds of her posh condo and the many documents attesting to Legarda’s ownership of the Manhattan condo, and copies of her SALns, where her acquisitions and her total assets failed to reflect either her condominium or her correct total assets.
Even her home in Urdaneta Village was not listed as part of her assets, even when it belongs to her, as she listed this down as a corporation known as Loren Legarda and Associates, where her relatives own one share each while she owns the rest, according to the report.
Biraogo was quoted by Daily Tribune stating that: “I have all the documentary evidence. I have the smoking gun needed to prove that Legarda does not deserve to stay a minute longer as a senator of the land.”
He stressed that “Legarda should be ashamed to even be campaigning on the same stage as President Aquino under his daang-matuwid (straight path) platform.”
“Lo and behold! It was only in her 2011 SALn that Legarda declared for the very first time her ownership of a property in America which she claimed she had acquired for P27,800,000. Let’s not forget that she filed her 2011 SALn at about the time when the impeachment trial of Corona was already at fever pitch,” the Daily Tribune quoted Biraogo as saying.
“What made Legarda declare a US property in her 2011 SALN? Was it because she became very, very afraid that she would be in the same boat as Corona – that her hidden condo unit at #77 Park Avenue would be found? Well, as it turns out, she has every reason to be deathly afraid,” said Biraogo.
According to the report, whether or not the US property referred to by Legarda in her 2011 SALn is the same as the one at #77 Park Avenue, Biraogo said Legarda, “like Corona before her, is already damaged goods” because the late declaration would not absolve her of what he calls the wrongdoing.
“She should consider withdrawing from the May elections because she will face removal like what happened to Corona. Despite her self-righteous stance during the trial of Corona, Legarda has every reason to be afraid, more afraid now that the truth has finally come out on her US property,” said Biraogo.
“What do we have in Senator Legarda now, a veritable Lady Corona? Well, I suggest she hire a good lawyer because she may be facing plunder raps and multiple counts of money laundering, as well as graft and corruption and perjury charges. She has to explain where she got the money to buy such an expensive property,” said Biraogo.
“Legarda’s declaration of a US property in her 2011 SALn was a pathetic attempt at cover-up because she, as a senator, should know better than most that the SALn law is very specific on the details that a SALn filer must input on the SALn form,” said Biraogo.
“With Legarda leaving blank in the SALn form the details that would have identified the location of that unspecified US property, as well as its current fair market value or if improvements had been done on it, she might as well have not declared it all.”
According to the report, Biraogo noted the huge increase in Legarda’s net worth – from P45,545,565 in 2010 to P68,553,755 in 2011 ; and the big increase in her cash on hand in banks — from P180,000 in 2010 to P7,963,190 in 2011.
He stressed that huge increases in the net worth of public officials, if unsupported by commensurate sources of income, are automatically deemed to be ill-gotten wealth.
“Legarda paid $700,000 in 2006 for the unit at #77 Park Avenue or P35,980,000 at the exchange rate of P51.40-$1 at the time. If that’s the same unit referred to by Legarda in her 2011 SALn, then she undervalued it by claiming the acquisition cost to be just P27,800,000” said Biraogo.
“Using the peso-exchange rate in 2011 instead of the prevailing rate in 2006 may be another clue that Legarda was already frazzled, dazed and confused even, when she declared that acquisition cost of P27,800,000.”
Biraogo said, Daily Tribune reported, that if Legarda admits that the unit at #77 Park Avenue was what was being referred to in her 2011 SALn, then the harder question for her to answer would be why was the property she bought in 2006 declared only in her 2011 SALn?”