Dennis Cunanan’s family being harassed, says lawyer
Dennis Cunanan. From https://dgdenniscunanan.com
MANILA, Philippines – “Spare my children,” says a witness in the P10-billion pork barrel scam who made this appeal through his lawyer.
Dennis Cunanan, according to lawyer Odessa Bernardo, received calls that were taken by his children from unidentified people asking about their father’s whereabouts and the appearance of unidentified people with cameras in the vicinity of their home in Quezon City.
“According to my client, he knows he’s no saint and people should deal directly with him and spare his family, particularly his children,” lawyer Odessa Bernardo told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in an interview.
Bernardo said her client had also expressed disappointment over Senator Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada’s statement he would not attend the Senate blue ribbon committee hearing on March 6.
“I was hoping I could finally face Senator Estrada, so the public could tell who is telling the truth,” she quoted Cunanan as saying.
Bernardo said Cunanan was aware of efforts by unidentified people to discredit him.
“He is prepared to face them and is prepared to tell the truth,” Bernardo said.
According to Bernardo, Cunanan’s children have been receiving calls from people who would not identify themselves but would ask for their father’s whereabouts or details about their persons.
“These are young children, and he is appealing to spare them,” Bernardo said.
According to Bernardo, who cited records of the village security force, unidentified men were “noted near the house of our client and some of them were seen surreptiously filming the house.”
She did not say what action the village security men took directly against the alleged village intruders but added that the matter has been reported to the department of Justice.
The lawyer denied that Cunanan’s house was bought for P40 million and said it was owned by Cunanan’s brother, Darius, a businessman who even now was still paying amortizations on the house.
“He confirmed they lived there, but denied the report that the acquisition price was P40 million. [The actual price] is low because it was acquired years before,” Bernardo said.
The lawyer promised to release pertinent documents, including Cunanan’s statement of assets and liabilities, at the next Senate hearing.
Cunanan is on leave as head of the Technology Resource Center and is a respondent in the plunder cases filed by the National Bureau of Investigation and the DOJ at the Office of the Ombudsman in connection with the pork barrel scam.
He is the first government official to offered to turn state’s witness.
Cunanan maintains he received no kickbacks during his tenure as deputy director general of TRC from 2004 to 2009.
In a 36-page affidavit submitted to the Ombudsman, Cunanan rebutted denials made by Estrada and Senators Bong Revilla and Juan Ponce Enrile that they had endorsed dummy non-governmental organizations as recipients of their pork barrel allocations.
Cunanan estimated that about P600 million in pork barrel funds was coursed through the TRC when he was the agency’s deputy head.
The funds were funneled to the NGOs by Estrada, Enrile and Revilla Jr. from their PDAF entitlements from 2007 to early 2009, Cunanan said.
Apart from the affidavit, “voluminous” documents were also submitted according to Cunanan in earlier interviews.
The paper trail would show the lawmakers knew of the use of Janet Lim Napoles’ bogus NGOs in the disbursement of their PDAF allocations.
Cunanan said he talked with Estrada, Revilla and Enrile’s former chief of staff Gigi Reyes as part of the TRC’s verification process.
He said that while he didn’t know how much kickbacks the lawmakers got, he claimed they exerted pressure on him to release their PDAF funds to the pre-selected organizations.
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