Are Bikoy and Mina for real?

Jude Josue Sabio .

IN February 2017, a controversy was sparked by a woman by the name of Guillermina Arcillas nicknamed Mina who called a live press conference in Davao City. During the press conference, she lambasted me, Sen. Antonio Trillanes and Fr. Alejo for allegedly coaching her about her testimony, and allegedly offering her P1 million so she would link President Duterte to drugs.  

Mina Arcillas was brought to me by Fr. Alejo sometime in the middle of November 2016. My task was to interview her about an incident she supposedly had witnessed in Davao City.

She made some serious allegations against the then mayor of Davao like claiming to witness a cold-blooded murder of a man who was allegedly shot thrice at point blank range while begging for his life in the presence of police officers, a Duterte close aide, and people closely associated with the man who would later become President.

I was intrigued by her allegation that she witnessed Duterte do things unusual in the presence of people closely associated with him. 

The allegations of Mina about Duterte prompted me to be very careful and meticulous in the details. It took me almost two months to extract the details from her and reduce them in a draft judicial affidavit that reached 60 long pages. She was about to execute this draft affidavit sometime at the end of December 2016 when Fr. Alejo suddenly dumped her because I came to know later that Arturo Lascanas was already about to surface. Fr. Alejo did not reveal this to me until the night prior to his Senate public confession.

This episode involving Mina triggered a media controversy of national proportions. Sen. Trillanes had to, as he did, respond in the media as well as Facebook to address the baseless accusation of Mina.  

In turn, I was immediately contacted by media reporters from Davao, notably Radyo5, asking me about my reactions.   In a live phonepatch interview, I gave my comments to radio stations, especially from Davao, notably that interview made by Rose Ramos of Radyo5 and another male radio reporter.

This episode also triggered a wave of controversy on social media. There were calls and demands for a Senate investigation. In response to these calls, I had to post on my FB account two or more videos showing the initial interview by me, the staff of Sen. Trillanes and Fr. Alejo of Mina, and my later one-on-one interview with her which I needed to do as a lawyer.

These videos helped a lot in disproving Mina’s claim that Sen. Trillanes, Fr. Alejo and I coached her into accusing President Duterte of having drug links. Had Mina’s judicial affidavit been executed by her, it would have shown that, indeed, she had accused the then mayor Duterte of direct involvement in drug-related activities.

In her voluntary and free narration to me, as reduced into her 60-page draft judicial affidavit, she claimed to have witnessed how blocks of white substance in container vans were brought in at the Pantalan in Panabo. She alleged that the container vans, used by a banana company owned by a congressman, were offloaded from a Chinese ship. Mina gave details of what Duterte allegedly did there between 2 am and 4 am in the presence of his special assistant, a congressman, a businessman and his Chinese companions, and a woman who has just been elected councilor in another city, among others. Mina also alleged to have witnessed a similar activity at the Sasa port in Davao City that allegedly involved the former mayor.

Another narrative given by Mina was about Duterte’s son Paolo and his companions, including a barangay chairman, whom she had accused, too. One of Mina’s narratives was about Paolo and Co. and plastic-wrapped blocks of cocaine allegedly piled on the floor of the Customs office in Davao. Paolo has repeatedly denied that he has drug links.

In February 2017 or before her live press conference in Davao, Mina was still able to text me, telling me that one Halin was gunned down and killed in a jeepney in Agdao, Davao City. Asked by me about the complete name of Halin, Mina said that her full name is “Ira Macaraya.” When I sought to elicit information from Mina from November up to the end of December 2016, for purposes of her judicial affidavit, she did not know the full name of Halin. It was only when she texted me in February 2017 that she was able to relay to me the full name of Halin.

In her narration to me, she said that Halin, later identified by her as “Ira Macaraya,” was the aunt of the wife of Paolo whose name is Lovely. She said that it was a long-time Davao councilor, her aunt, who introduced her to Halin, a “balot” vendor. It was this Halin who supposedly asked her to join her in selling “balot.”

Halin allegedly told her that it was Polong who had told her to sell “balot” which would be bought on “pakyaw” basis by Duterte. Halin had been selling balot since 1992. According to Mina, Halin asked her to join her because her long-time companion refused to join her. She said Halin was comfortable with her because she is a niece of a councilor and is personally known also to the then mayor Duterte.  

Mina said she tagged along with Halin in selling “balot” and on two occasions, one at the Pantalan at Panabo City and the other at Sasa port, Davao City, she allegedly witnessed Duterte in action.

I shared the draft, unsigned  judicial affidavit of Mina with Rappler and with Mindanews based in Davao City, through e-mail. The draft judicial affidavit is in question-and-answer form in Tagalog, consisting of 60 pages in long bond paper.

It is said that Mina could be a “tanim testigo” with the malicious intention to extort money in exchange for her testimony. But she asked only for a mere pittance principally for a safehouse in Cagayan de Oro and upkeep for her family and allies which is, of course, normal. In fact, there was no agreement about a huge money in exchange for her testimony. Further, there was no evidence that she had previously demanded money in exchange for her testimony in any case before. 

Neither was it shown to me that she was a professional witness with a propensity to lie. In her text to me before she came out in that live press conference in Davao, she gave information about the murder of Halin in a jeep in Agdao which made it very possible that she feared for her life and in order to save her life, she had to falsely accuse me, Sen. Trillanes and Fr. Alejo of coaching and offering her P1 million. 

She could have also felt bad about the fact that she was unceremoniously  dumped, without any effort of explaining to her, after she had already been exposed to so much danger to her life that Halin’s murder finally made her change her mind just to save her from suffering the same fate that befell on Halin.

The narration of Mina to me, replete with all the details, presents a nagging question: What if what she narrated to me, contained in the unsigned 60-page draft judicial affidavit, were true? 

If her draft judicial affidavit materialized, at the minimum, it would have left the father and son with a lot of explaining to do, most especially if viewed in the context of the blocks of white substance allegedly discovered in the container vans in Davao during those relevant times. It would have put into serious doubt Duterte’s “I hate drugs” rhetoric and the legitimacy of his so-called “war on drugs.”

Just very recently, Sen. Trillanes cited Mina in his privilege speech in the Senate in an effort to demonstrate that “Bikoy” is not new because there was Mina before. In all honesty, I must say that, in my conversation then with Sen. Trillanes, he did not believe the story of Mina, prompting him to distance from her from the start.

Only Fr. Alejo and I believed in Mina and continued on our own. But when the time came near in the end of December 2016 for Mina to execute her judicial affidavit, Fr. Alejo suddenly wanted to dump her because, according to him, Mina had asked for money before.

I told Fr. Alejo to show to me that Mina had asked for money before in exchange for her testimony in any case.   But all that Fr. Alejo was able to show me was that Mina had asked for money in relation to the May 2016 elections in the amount of P60,000 for livelihood projects and P7,000 for a child dengue patient.

This information came from his contacts from abroad, notably Myra de Villa. In fairness to Mina, as I said earlier, she never asked for a huge amount in exchange for her testimony.  

Mina could be a “tanim testigo” or a genuine whistleblower. Who knows? That is, of course, in the realm of speculation now. We could only know that if she were able to execute her judicial affidavit which could have been submitted to the proper authorities. Only then could we have really known if she would stand by her detailed narration in the unexecuted judicial affidavit.

But if it is any indication, sometime in the middle of last year, a person by the name of Emtee Barretto contacted me by text and then by phone call. She identified herself to be a close friend of Mina. She claimed that Mina wanted to retract what she had said in the press conference because it was a lie and she was conscience-stricken towards me and Sen. Trillanes.

According to Ms. Barretto, it was the now senator-elect Bong Go who had arranged the press conference in Davao City, and Mina resented being taken as a witness against Sen. Trillanes in the sedition case in Pasay City.

(Jude Josue Sabio is the lawyer from Misamis Oriental who filed a case against President Duterte before the International Criminal Court. His views do not necessarily reflect the position of the editors and staff of this paper.)