{"id":86989,"date":"2017-01-29T14:46:37","date_gmt":"2017-01-29T19:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=86989"},"modified":"2017-01-29T14:48:02","modified_gmt":"2017-01-29T19:48:02","slug":"aguirre-knew-of-illegal-gambling-at-lams-fontana-trillanes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/01\/29\/aguirre-knew-of-illegal-gambling-at-lams-fontana-trillanes\/","title":{"rendered":"Aguirre knew of illegal gambling at Lam\u2019s Fontana\u2014Trillanes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Senator<\/a>
Senator Antonio Trillanes IV. (Facebook photo<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA, Philippines\u2014Senator Antonio Trillanes IV on Sunday alleged that Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre knew of the illegal gambling operations of Macau-based businessman Jack Lam in his Fontana Leisure Parks and Casino in Clark, Pampanga.<\/p>\n

From 2013 to 2016, Aguirre was the vice president and chief legal counsel of Clark Development Corp. (CDC), the agency that manages Clark Freeport Zone where Lam\u2019s Fontana is located.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe illegal operation of Jack Lam’s casino has been going on for more than 10 years already. But since Aguirre was VP and chief legal counsel of the CDC from March 2013 to June 2016, then he surely knew about this operation,\u201d Trillanes said.<\/p>\n

In a Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing, Aguirre said that no raids were conducted in Lam\u2019s Fontana because the CDC believed that the casino\u2019s operation was legal since it has been authorized Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA).<\/p>\n

However, Trillanes stressed that Aguirre should have known that Fontana\u2019s operations were violating laws.<\/p>\n

“As CDC’s Chief Legal Counsel, Aguirre should know and definitely knows that immigration laws were being violated by Jack Lam’s casino and that CEZA’s permits cannot be used in other freeports in the country. But still he allowed it to operate then,\u201d Trillanes said, referring to the 1,316 Chinese nationals working without permit at the Fontana.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, the 100 million peso question now is, ‘Is the shakedown, Aguirre’s way of saying he is the new boss in town?’,” he added.<\/p>\n

Trillanes also pointed out loopholes in Aguirre\u2019s earlier testimony such as Aguirre\u2019s prior knowledge of the amount of bribes to the top Bureau of Immigration officials when nobody supposedly told him about it, among others.<\/p>\n

He also questioned Aguirre\u2019s meeting with suspects in case inside a hotel.<\/p>\n

“Aguirre has a lot of explaining to do. Now, instead of resorting to name-calling, he should start rehearsing his story to cover the holes in his previous testimony which implicated him to this bribery scandal,” Trillanes said.<\/p>\n

The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing on the P50 million BI bribery scandal is expected to resume on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA, Philippines\u2014Senator Antonio Trillanes IV on Sunday alleged that Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre knew of the illegal gambling operations of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":85881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,16,95],"tags":[8624,14350,2982,14349,13844,12849,4328,11129,14351,12005],"class_list":["post-86989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-antonio-trillanes","tag-bi-bribery-scandal","tag-bureau-of-immigration","tag-clark-freeport-zone","tag-fontana-leisure-parks-and-casino","tag-jack-lam","tag-pampanga","tag-philippine-senate","tag-senate-blue-ribbon-committee","tag-vitaliano-aguirre","mauthors-katherine-padilla","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}