THE PCIJ contacted the office of the Batangas governor to get his take on this supposedly new jueteng setup, as well as on other matters. Provincial administrator Geron said the governor would reply to the questions the PCIJ faxed to Sanchez's office. As this was being readied for publication, however, the replies had yet to arrive.

If the talks about Sanchez and jueteng refuse to die down, though, it may be partly because while Batangueños know their governor is a rather wealthy man, they do not really know where that wealth came from.

	SUSPENDED. Gov. Sanchez earned a suspension order from the Ombudsman for the P350-million computerization project won by Automatic Data Processing Technologies (ADPT) and Generation E-Systems, both of which are believed to be owned by him.

Sanchez, a mechanical engineering graduate, reportedly began several businesses soon after he came back from a working stint in Saudi Arabia in the 1980s, among them a travel agency, a security agency, and construction companies. In his 2004 Statement of Assets and Liabilities (SAL), he listed his net worth as P82.9 million. But he did not list any business interests.

His 2005 SAL shows him poorer by about P750,000, with a net worth of P82.14. This time around, he did list one business interest: Galaxy Cable Corporation.

Yet there are those who say that the governor has other businesses — only that these are not under his name. The P350-million computerization project that earned Sanchez a suspension order from the Ombudsman, for instance, was won by Automatic Data Processing Technologies (ADPT) and Generation E-Systems, both of which are believed by many people to be owned by the governor.

On paper, ADPT's biggest shareholder is Geraldine Enriquez; for Gen-E, it is Marigrace Murillo. Sanchez is not mentioned anywhere in the corporate documents.

Both Enriquez and Murillo, however, are Sanchez's nieces. Thus, while Sanchez may not appear as the companies' owner, they are still barred from entering into any contract with the government because the Government Procurement Reform Act (Republic Act 9184) forbids relatives of government officials from doing such. Moreover, ADPT and Gen-E won the project allegedly without the bidding required by law.

These irregularities prompted Vice Governor Richard 'Ricky' Recto to file graft and corruption charges against Sanchez at the Office of the Ombudsman in September 2005. (A year later, it was the governor's turn to accuse Recto, whom he says was behind the bombing of his Humvee, and who should therefore face charges of murder and frustrated murder.)

It took 18 months for the Ombudsman to issue a suspension order for Sanchez. In the end, the Department of the Interior and Local Government was unable to implement it because Sanchez barricaded himself inside the capitol and waited for Lady Luck to rescue him in the form of a TRO.

THEN AGAIN, Sanchez may have just been too attached to the capitol to let go easily. Beautifying the 23-hectare capitol was one of his pet projects, and it is what many Batangueños point to when asked if there is any one thing they can say to be their governor's achievement.

Dead and Buried SOLVING MURDERS are the territory of the police, but when the victim is a government graft and corruption investigator who was apparently killed in connection with his job, then it's safe to assume his former colleagues would be keen to monitor the investigation of his case. At least that's what we thought when we were trying to find out what had happened to the case of murdered Batangas Provincial Ombudsman Guillermo Gamo: We checked the Public Assistance and Corruption Prevention Office (PACPO) at the Office of the Ombudsman in Manila. The PACPO, after all, has direct supervision over resident ombudsmen, which Gamo was one (a very active ombudsman at that) at the time of his death. We spoke to about three staff members of PACPO, but none of them had ever heard of Gamo's killing, much less about the man himself. We did finally find Vicky Roberto, who used to be in charge of the resident ombudsman program for Luzon but is now detailed at the main office. Roberto said that she had personally heard of the killing of Gamo. But asked whether there is a specific concern on the part of the Ombudsman's office here in Manila to monitor the case or coordinate with the police's investigation, she took a long pause before replying, "Umm...I can't answer you on that, as I've been detailed to the central office since 2006. Maybe you should speak to Deputy Ombudsman for Luzon, Fernandez." "Yes ma'am, but Mr. Gamo was killed in May 2005. At the time of his death, did you or your office make an effort to monitor the case?" "No, none at that time. I just don't know if after I left (that detail, in March 2006), there was a directive to monitor the case." As to speaking to Deputy Ombubsman for Luzon, Victor Fernandez, he was actually the PCIJ's first stop. He was unavailable, but his staff said they were not familiar with Gamo's case. They then referred us to someone else. — PCIJ staff

"I like it, now the capitol looks presentable," says a 32-year-old businesswoman of the project that Sanchez at first said had a P500-million price but then later said that it could not have cost that much.

Even the retiree who says he will still not vote for Sanchez this May because of persistent jueteng talks marvels at the capitol's transformation: "Napakaganda nga naman kasi, batbat ng ilaw! Bakod na bakod pa lang ay napakaganda na. (It really is beautiful, it's studded with lights! Even the perimeter walls surrounding it are already beautiful.)"

Like other Batangueños, however, the retiree has also heard that money was made illegally on the project, and that the dirty money trail could go straight up to the governor. Says another local in his 60s: "The general impression of the public is, if there's a contract, there must be some kickback. But for me, that's rather unfair because no one has proven anything yet."

The beautification project contract was won by Primaforma Company, which is headed by Caridad Salonga and Carmelita Go. Coincidentally, Salonga and Go were also Sanchez's favorite contractors when he was still Sto. Tomas mayor.

It's information that could furrow the brows of the likes of Archbishop Arguelles, who has offered an explanation why no one has come out in the open regarding what they have supposedly seen or heard behind closed doors at the capitol. The archbishop, who was born and bred in Batangas, said at one point, "In Sanchez's rule as governor, even my former belief that Batangueños are brave was proven wrong. I discovered that when money and fear reign, the brave Batangueños cannot be found."

But more than anything else, Arguelles has been upset over the way the governor cleared the capitol of squatters. If truth be told, that was what had him butting heads with Sanchez in the first place. There used to be some 323 squatters occupying the 1.8-hectare piece of government land behind the capitol building. When Sanchez became governor, among his first acts was to draw up a plan calling for the clearing of the land and turn it into a forest park.

Provincial administrator Geron had noted that the 30-year contract signed by the land's original occupants in 1966 had already lapsed. The residents then sought help from Arguelles, who decided that putting a request in writing was best.

"I wrote a letter to Sanchez, asking him not to evict the residents," says the archbishop. "He responded by saying he will not evict them, but he did the opposite."

There is still no forest park in the vacated area. During the demolition, one man died of a heart attack while watching the demolition team flatten his home. The operation was done swiftly; much unlike Sanchez three years later, the residents had no chance to seek a reprieve from the courts. — with additional reporting by PCIJ staff

Mei Magsino was herself the subject of a PCIJ story in late 2005. Click here to read "Reporting Under the Gun."