"Euro" generals: there's such a title in the Philippines

There's a group of Philippine national police generals who went to St. Petersburg for the 77th Interpol Convention October 7-10. As they prepared to fly back from Moscow to Manila on the 11th, Russian customs authorities saw some 124,000 euros in the baggage of one of them, a lot more than what was allowed to be carried out of the country. The general, Director Eliseo dela Paz, and his wife were held for more than a week until the fiasco could be explained.

The national police offered several explanations when they arrived back in the Philippines, but none of them enough to convince the public that it was legitimate money. Some quarters say that it could have been kickback money that those generals collected from some European businessmen who had transactions with the Philippine police organization. Others suspect it could be money from gambling syndicates, deposited in European banks that the generals withdrew on orders of someone higher up.

One explanation they offered when the Philippine senate started investigating - it was for buying intelligence equipment, so no questions asked. Senators scowled at this, knowing even intelligence procurements have to go through strict budgetary processes. And so back to the original explanation - it was a cash advance for the entire delegation to the Interpol meeting - just in case gets sick or meets an accident.

Now, Dela Paz and wife are back in Manila, but no one has explained fully well whose money was it. The money remains in Russian hands.