Manila: The Philippine anti-graft watchdog has ordered the forfeiture of properties worth 29.2 million pesos (Dh2.1 million) from former national police chief Allan Purisima and his family, for accumulating wealth disproportionate to their known sources of income.
In a resolution issued last Tuesday, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales ordered the filing of seizure proceedings before the Sandiganbayan court, to recover the unexplained wealth accumulated by Purisima, his wife and five children.
Purisima who served as Philippine National Police Director-General from December 2012 to February 2015, was personally hand-picked by then President Benigno Aquino III to head the top civilian law enforcement body.
In the resolution, Carpio-Morales ordered the recovery of the unexplained wealth accumulated by Purisima, his wife Ma Ramona Lydia Purisima, sons Rainier Van Albert, Eumir Von Andrei, Alan, Jr. and Jason Arvi.
“The Ombudsman also ordered the filing of information for nine counts of Perjury against General Purisima for wilfully and deliberately failing to disclose all of his properties in his Statement of Assets Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) for 2006 to 2014,” a statement issued by the anti-graft watchdog office said.
Government officials are required by law to state their personal worth every years.
According to the ombudsman, among the properties accumulated illegally by Purisima and his family include a farm estate in Aulo, Palayan City, Nueva Ecija; residential land in Zaragosa, Nueva Ecija; 11 parcels of land in Talisay, Batangas; land in San Ildefonso, Ilocos Sur; and personal properties consisting of firearms acquired from 2010 to 2014.
Aside from non-disclosure, a parallel administrative case filed against Purisima proved that he was guilty of grave misconduct, serious dishonesty and Aacquisition of unexplained wealth and was ordered dismissed from the service.
“Based on the investigation and analysis made by the ombudsman, General Purisima and his family accumulated unexplained acquisitions totalling at least P29,292,459,” the ombudsman’s office said.
Purisima is known to be personally close to Aquino. In 1989, the then junior police official saved the future President during an assault at the presidential palace by coup plotters out to topple Aquino’s mother, President Corazon Aquino, from power.
Purisima was ordered dismissed from office in 2015 by the ombudsman for his connections with a courier service tapped by the government to deliver gun license permits to private firearms owners, WerFast.
Officials said as PNP Chief, the exerted influence in enabling WerFast to secure the lucrative gun permit courier delivery service.
Purisima was likewise implicated, as a then dismissed national police chief, to the Mamasapano Incident in 2015 when police commandos under the Special Action Force (SAF) carried out a top secret operation to capture Malaysian terrorist and bomb maker Zulfikli Bin Hir in the municipality of Mamasapano in Maguindanao, Central Mindanao.
Zulfikli was neutralised but at a cost in the loss of lives of 44 SAF commandos.
It turned out that the operation wrapped in so much secrecy that even the military, who could have provided assistance to safe the police commandos, were not informed of the operation