Aquino: Let truth body decide on PEACe bonds probe

President Benigno Aquino III on Monday said he would let the Truth Commission decide whether to probe the alleged involvement of one of his trusted officials, Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman, in a non-government consortium that supposedly benefited from a government bond flotation in 2001. The Caucus of NGO networks (Code NGO), which Soliman used to head, supposedly earned a P1.4-billion commission from the P10-billion Poverty Eradication and Alleviation Certificate (PEACe) bonds issued by the government in 2001. Aquino said that while he agrees that there should be "closure" on the controversy, he would let the Truth Commission under retired Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. decide whether to investigate it and whether to include Soliman in the probe or not. Aquino created the Truth Commission through Executive Order No. 1 to investigate corruption scandals in the nine-year Arroyo administration and recommend sanctions against people they find guilty of wrongdoing. "I would not want to tell the Truth Commission what it should do and I have confidence in the people that I nominated into it that they will look into it as part of their work if they feel that it is necessary," Aquino said at a media briefing in Tarlac City. Again, I don't think it is right for me to start telling them this is the first one you'll investigate, or that is the one you'll investigate. That will cheapen their activities," he said. "We did create that commission, we imbued it with independence, then I don't think it's proper for me to tell them what to do," he added. Truth Commission member Carlos Medina told GMANews.TV that the probe body is open to investigating the controversy "if the allegations are given substance and are brought before the Philippine Truth Commission." Senator Edgardo Angara last week asked the Truth Commission to include Soliman in its probe. "If a case is filed against any of the Hyatt 10 members, the Truth Commission should also look into them and not dismiss them immediately just because they are allies of the present administration. It should not act as if the Truth Commission was custom-made to go after a specific person or individual,’’ Angara said. Soliman is a member of the Hyatt 10, a group of Cabinet members and senior government officials who resigned from the Arroyo administration in 2005 during the height of accusations that then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo rigged the results of the previous year’s elections. Soliman and other Hyatt 10 members such as Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, Budget Secretary Florencio "Butch" Abad, and Presidential Peace Adviser Teresita "Ging" Deles returned to government in the Aquino administration. They supported Aquino's presidential campaign. - with Sophia Regina Dedace/KBK, GMANews.TV