Luy files swamp Senate
The National Bureau of Investigation- Cyber Crime Division submit the digital files of whistle-blower Benhur Luy that allegedly contain pork barrel transactions to Senator Teofisto Guingona III in his office at the Senate Building, Pasay City on Wednesday. NIÑO JESUS ORBETA/INQUIRER
MANILA, Philippines—Benhur Luy’s digital files could run up to 31,700-plus pages and fill a whole room, Sen. Teofisto Guingona III said on Wednesday.
And if there is any difference with Luy’s files published by the Inquirer, these files are the official ones, Guingona said after receiving a sealed CD of the files from National Bureau of Investigation Director Virgilio Mendez in the Senate.
“This is the official copy. I don’t think there’s a need to compare,” Guingona, chair of the Senate blue ribbon committee, said when asked about Sen. Jinggoy Estrada’s move to subpoena Luy’s files in Inquirer’s possession.
Guingona, however, said this could be done.
The Inquirer ran a series on Luy’s digital files detailing Napoles’ transactions with 15 incumbent and 10 former senators from 2002 to 2012, the period when Janet Lim-Napoles allegedly channeled P10 billion worth of allocations from the congressional Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), or pork barrel, to ghost projects and huge kickbacks.
Mendez said he could not say if the disk on which the Inquirer based its stories was the same digital record the NBI submitted to the Office of the Ombudsman.
“But the hard copy that was produced out of the hard drive was submitted to the Office of the Ombudsman in compliance with the subpoena given to us since February,” he said.
Mendez said it was Guingona’s call to disclose the contents of the files.
The NBI director submitted a copy of the Luy disk to Guingona in compliance with the subpoena issued by his panel. Wednesday was the deadline for the submission of the files.
“The copies that we have submitted to the Ombudsman are more or less, 31,700 pages,” he told reporters.
Guingona confirmed this. “All I know is that if printed, it will fill a whole room,” he said.
Guingona said the committee would analyze the files, as well as Napoles’ affidavits, before deciding when to resume the hearing on the scam.
The committee was to furnish the senators and then the media a copy of the CD within the day in the “spirit of transparency,” he said.
“We will collate it, evaluate it, analyze it. Then after that, we will consult with the members of the committee for their ideas as to how to go about this, and then we will call the hearing,” Guingona said.
Printing of files take time
It would be premature to set a date for the next hearing because the printing alone of the files would take time, the senator said.
Guingona also said that the committee would subpoena Napoles’ “red book,” which lawyer Levito Baligod alleged was her record of PDAF transactions with lawmakers, if this existed.
“We have to verify. We just heard about that today. We’ll verify its existence. Of course we will subpoena it if it exists,” he said.
Napoles said that the affidavit she wrote was based on her recollections while she was confined at Ospital ng Makati, where she has been confined since March 31 for the removal of a cancerous uterus.
She is under police custody on a serious illegal detention case filed by Luy—not because of the scam, for which she had been indicted, along with Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr. The senators have denied wrongdoing.
Originally posted at 11:43 pm | Wednesday, May 28, 2014
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