February 3, 2010

 

THE opposition on Tuesday trained its guns on presidential spokesman Gary Olivar, accusing the former activist turned investment banker as an American citizen embedded right within the inner sanctum of Malacanang.

 

Liberal Party president Franklin Drilon disclosed during an anti-Arroyo forum organized by the Integrated Bar of the Philippines that Olivar sometimes uses an American passport when traveling abroad.

 

To prove its point, the Drilon camp faxed copies of arrival and departure records apparently obtained from the Bureau of Immigration, detailing Olivar's travel records from 1993 to 2009, as well as a photocopy of Olivar's American passport.

 

 

Reached for comment, Olivar issued this statement: "I have never denied I have dual citizenship. thanks to (then) Senator Drilon himself who sponsored that legislation. My government work is fully compliant with both the privileges and constraints of that status as defined by both the Philippine and US governments."

 

 

"This apparent misuse of a person's travel records with government for what appears to be a purely partisan end is a chilling coda to early statements from Sen. Drilon's party-mates seemingly directed against the institutional integrity, first, of the Supreme Court, then of the Commission on Elections."

 

 
"I hope we are not seeing here an incipient inquisition by the self-styled forces of good against what they claim are forces of evil."

 

 

According to Immigration records, Olivar last used his US passport to travel to the United States on November 22, when he was already serving the Arroyo administration.

 

 

 "Under the law, a dual citizen who becomes a public official should renounce the other citizenship," said an opposition lawyer, who asked not to be identified by name because he happens to be a fellow alumnus of Olivar in the University of the Philippines.