DOJ to place Bolante, Lorenzo on Immigration watch list

After being charged with plunder, former Agriculture officials Luis Lorenzo Jr. and Jocelyn "Joc-Joc" Bolante will be placed on the Bureau of Immigration's watch list to ensure that they will not leave the country while the case against them is being tried. At a news briefing on Tuesday, Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Leila de Lima said "I will first verify whether there is no watch list order or hold depature order yet, because these may be existing already." If there is none, De Lima said she will instruct Chief State Counsel Ricardo Paras to draft the order placing on the Immigration watch list Lorenzo, Bolante, and other persons that the Office of the Ombudsman charged before the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan. The BI is an attached agency of the DOJ, whose secretary can exercise plenary powers in placing on the watch list persons indicted in court. On Monday, the Office of the Ombudsman filed plunder charges against Bolante, Lorenzo, other former Agriculture officials and their alleged runners in facilitating the supposed diversion of P728 million in fertilizer funds to the campaign kitty of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for the 2004 elections. The Ombudsman made the move after junking the motions for reconsideration of Bolante, Lorenzo, and the other respondents. Also on Monday, Bolante asked the Supreme Court to nullify the Ombudsman's orders to file charges against him. He said that the the anti-graft body erred in finding probable cause to prosecute him for the alleged misuse of P728 million fertilizer funds. - VVP, GMA News