National Bureau of Investigation agents have arrested two counterfeiters and seized fake bills with a face value of over P1 million meant for a Visayan politician?s campaign war chest in a raid in Pasay City.

NBI Director Nestor Mantaring presented yesterday to the media Armando Baloyo Tiauson and Fulgencio Gonzaga Panado, both of Room 603, 6th floor, Belton Tower, 25 Perla St., F.B. Harrison.

A third suspect, Ben Zalsos, registered tenant of the unit, remains at large.

Tiauson during the conference said he was paid P5,000 for every P1 million he completed and that the order was for P100 million from a Samar congressman, who would be using it for his campaign sorties.

?We will determine the identity of the politician and his participation to this illegal activity,? Mantaring said.

Bangko Sentral said in a statement that the counterfeiting operation was being done in stages and that the two were involved in putting the security thread on the bills.

Lawyer Roel Bolivar, head of the NBI Reaction, Arrest and Interdiction Division, said the bureau received information last March 2 that there were people, who turned out to be Tiauson and Panado, engaged in the illegal manufacture and printing of counterfeit peso bills in big denominations.

An informant gave an NBI agent two pieces of P1,000 bills supposedly from the counterfeiters, which central bank certified were bogus.

Branch 114 Judge Edwin Ramizon of the Pasay Regional Trial Court issued a search warrant on March 10 which was served on the same day by a team of Pasay policemen, bureau and central bank operatives.

The operation resulted in the confiscation of 1,114 pieces of fake P1,000 bills, two pieces of fake P500 bills and counterfeiting tools. Jing Villamente and Eileen A. Mencias