Though defiant all throughout her ordeal after a warrant for her arrest was issued by a Cavite court, the combative Carmen mayor waved triumphantly Thursday afternoon the release order indicating she posted bail involving 50 criminal cases for estafa and violation of the Bouncing Check Law. In an earlier radio interview in her favored radio station, Carmen Mayor Conchita “Che” Toribio de los Reyes dared her political enemies to cause her arrest upon arrival at the city airport that Thursday afternoon. Efforts made by Station DYRD to be granted the same interview for her reaction about the warrant of arrest proved futile as she refused to answer calls. Mayor Che accused the station of being bias to her person, although it tried its very best to get the side of the feisty mayor every time an unflattering issue hits her. As to the bail bond, reports reaching the Post indicated that her handler City Mayor Dan Lim and City Councilor Doni Pequero already made arrangement with the Bacoor (Cavite) Municipal Circuit Trial Court for her temporary liberty after posting bail of P196,000.

Mayor Che is running for governor against incumbent Gov. Edgar Chatto. The colourful lady mayor saved what could have been a day of embarrassment had the warrant been served without her knowing it beforehand. The mayor must have been tipped off earlier that an impending arrest was in the offing prompting her to file a leave of absence for four days to apparently prepare the bail money. Capitol sources said that an arresting team made up of men of the National Bureau of Investigation local office and policemen of the Philippine National Police was on the ready to serve the warrant in her Carmen office the whole day of Wednesday. But since Monday, she was on leave, until three days later. The bail money was for 34 cases of violation of Bilang Pambansa 22 or Bouncing Check Law and 16 other counts for estafa which were bailable for P6,000 for each count. The bail for each count of rubber check is P2,000 as pegged by the Cavite MCTC.

THE ARREST ORDER

Presiding Judge Adeliza Magno-Gingoyon of the Municipal Trial Court (MTC) in Bacoor, Cavite commanded her arrest on October 18, 2010 but the warrant was only carried out a month later. Delos Reyes posted the total cash bail bond of P196,000 for her provisional liberty last Tuesday, November 27, or two days she made a challenge to arrest her at the city airport. The cases dated back to as early as 1993 while Mayor Che was using the name Conchita Ordonez. She was then a struggling businesswoman as shown from the string of criminal complaints. The same copies of the arrest orders provided to the media here as certified by MTC-Bacoor clerk of court Eddie Sarancanlao were obtained by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and Philippine National Police (PNP). The court clerk certified just on November 7 this year the copies of the arrest warrants. Since the arrest warrants had been out in 2010, it appeared from the record that the accused remained at large notwithstanding the warrants issued until her posting of the bailbond Tuesday.

There then also being no return of the warrants and in order that the cases could not remain pending for an indefinite period, the Cavite court ordered on July 15, 2011 to archive the cases but without prejudice to their revival as soon as Delos Reyes is arrested. Per case documents and court records, it turned out that the Carmen mayor was named as respondent Conchita Ordoñez, the surname of her first husband, and not Delos Reyes which is the surname of her present partner. Comebacking Carmen ex-mayor Manuel “Boy” Molina claimed in his first election clash with Delos Reyes that the latter’s marriage with Ordoñez was not null and void and her being now with another husband is therefore bigamous. But Delos Reyes had then answered that she considered her first marriage a premature one and he had a lawyer who could handle it. Molina believed that Delos Reyes is hiding in the family name of her second husband to evade arrest resulting from her many court cases. The court commanded the arrest of Delos Reyes, or Ordoñez as charged, “c/o Fidel Thaddeus Borja,” said to be her lawyer, at a given address of “20th Floor, Security Bank Center, 6776 Ayala Ave., Makati City.” In one case for estafa, a Caviteña complainant named Cristina Abad accused Delos Reyes---or Ordoñez as identified in the charge sheet---of not delivering a Westinghouse refrigerator that she ordered from the respondent, who was then the manager of Zapote Marketing based in Bacoor, Cavite.

A resident of F&E De Castro Subdivision, Ligas in Bacoor, Abad had already paid P8,700 for the item but Delos Reyes, “once in possession” of the money, “misappropriated, misapplied and converted the same for her personal own use and benefit.” Delos Reyes did not deliver the refrigerator despite the buyer’s demand, but not until she had come to learn that Abad had ultimately sued her. Another Caviteña, Virginia Reyes of St. Joseph Village in Panapaan, Bacoor and a certain Letecia Caluya of Peasant Village, Bayanan, Muntinlupa in Metro Manila charged Delos Reyes with issuing checks of different amounts but which bounced. According to them, the respondent issued the checks even if she knew fully well that she had no sufficient fund or credit with the drawee banks, the Bank of Philippine Island and United Coconut Planters Bank to cover the amounts. The checks were dishonored on ground of “account closed.” Delos Reyes did not make good her checks despite repeated demands, thereby causing Reyes and Caluya to also hale her to court. There were other cases filed by the two against the same respondent but who had bailed her out in the past per court records.

ARRAIGNMENT

In November 27, 2012 court order approving the bail, Judge Gingoyon at the same time set the arraignment of the accused at her sala on February 13 next year at 1:30 in the afternoon. In an undertaking, which is a separate court document also signed last Tuesday, the name of the accused appeared as Conchita Delos Reyes and not Ordoñez. The Carmen mayor “crashed out” by pen her present surname as computer-printed on the court document and wrote “Ordoñez” over it. Her given address in the court order approving her bail bond and the undertaking declaring her agreement to the court conditions is Agustina Village, Barangay Zone 1-A, Dasmariñas City, Cavite and not Carmen, Bohol. Early this year, Boholano retired police Gen. Alberto Olario, who charged Delos Reyes in the Ombudsman, exposed the Carmen mayor to have faced swindling, estafa and other offenses in other areas in the country, including Mindanao.(Ven rebo Arigo)