Marvic Leonen among fake beneficiaries of pork scam
MANILA, Philippines–Talk about “legal blasphemy.”
Even a magistrate of the Supreme Court, whose members are regarded as the “gods of Padre Faura,” was purportedly a “beneficiary” of a livelihood program supposedly funded by the pork barrel allotments of detained Sen. Jinggoy Estrada.
This was the latest revelation of whistle-blower Merlina Suñas in her return to the witness stand on Monday at the continuation of Estrada’s bail hearing in the Sandiganbayan Fifth Division.
As in the previous hearings, the defense panel immediately raised objections in a bid to stifle Suñas’ direct examination handled by Special Prosecutor Jacinto de la Cruz.
Grilled by Associate Justice Alexander Gesmundo, the witness admitted that she and her former coworkers falsified the lists of beneficiaries which they submitted to government agencies as a requirement for the liquidation of Estrada’s Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), more known as pork barrel.
She said among those on the list was Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, who was appointed to the high court by President Aquino last year after heading the government panel which negotiated a peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Suñas, who had been under fire from the three-member Third Division for alleged glaring inconsistencies in her testimony, recalled how alleged pork barrel scam architect Janet Lim-Napoles instructed her staff to “fabricate” the names of beneficiaries of PDAF-funded projects.
Ghost beneficiaries
She said at least 20 of Napoles’ employees, including herself, drivers and housemaids, would meet inside the conference room of the JLN Corp. office on the 25th floor of the upscale Discovery Suites in Ortigas Center, Pasig City, to “supply” manufactured identities.
At times, Suñas said she and other coemployees would just “jumble” the first names and surnames of some individuals they knew personally, including their relatives.
“We invented names of nonexistent individuals… We did that every time we needed to liquidate the PDAF allotments. We did that many times,” she told the court in Filipino.
“We got the names from newspapers, yellow pages (telephone directory) and others. We also used the names of those who passed the bar exams in 2007 and 2008,” she said.
Asked by Gesmundo if she could recall the bar examinees who were included in the list of beneficiaries, the witness said she could not remember anybody in particular.
“There were some who reacted, but I can’t remember their names,” she said.
“But there is one who is already in the Supreme Court. Marvic Leonen who is listed as a beneficiary,” Suñas said, drawing laughter from the three justices of the Fifth Division and others inside the courtroom.
“Why include his name? Did he take the bar that year?” Gesmundo asked Suñas. “Why use the names of successful bar examinees? Why did you not use the names of the successful health professionals?”
Bar examinees
The witness, who looked relaxed as she narrated how they produced the bogus lists, said it was one of Napoles’ housemaids who suggested that they copy the names in the results of the bar examinations.
“Did it not occur to you that the persons you wrote down may come forward and claim that they received something?” the justice asked.
But Suñas said they were confident that nobody would come out publicly to declare that they benefited from the “ghost” projects of Napoles-linked nongovernment organizations.
In an interview after the court proceeding, De la Cruz said he himself was not aware that Leonen’s name was used as a purported recipient of Estrada’s PDAF allotments.
He said it was possible that Leonen was the dean of the University of the Philippines’ College of Law or one of the bar examiners at the time.
Contacts in high places
In her testimony, Suñas described how she and her coemployees were able to penetrate several state agencies with the help of certain personalities who were identified by Napoles as her “contacts.”
Besides her responsibilities as president of one of the fake foundations, Suñas said Napoles also tasked her to follow up the release of special allotment release orders, notices of cash allocation and other documents pertaining to the release of PDAF of lawmakers.
Estrada’s battery of lawyers, among them Paul Mar Arias, Noel Malaya and Sabino Acut, repeatedly tried to block the prosecution’s line of questioning, arguing that Suñas was already making her own conclusion without basis.
At one point, Arias lamented that the documents that De la Cruz asked Suñas to describe were not included in the list of stipulation which both the prosecution and defense panels had agreed to mark during the pre-trial conference to expedite Estrada’s bail hearing.
Estrada, who has been attending his bail hearing, is detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Camp Crame for allegedly embezzling P184 million of his pork barrel allocations.
