Senator Juan Ponce Enrile. FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — Some senators spent their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), more commonly known as “pork barrel”, without any records of their expenditures, according to Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile.
“I know that some people in the Senate used their PDAF but [it is] not reflected in any record that they’ve used their PDAF,” Enrile said in a press conference Friday.
When pressed to name who those senators were and whether this was still going on up to now, Enrile refused to elaborate any further.
“I dont want to name names,” he said. “Hanggang dun na lang ako, (I will leave it there).”
Enrile made the disclosure after being asked if he supported the proposal to appoint former senator Panfilo Lacson as a special independent investigator of the pork barrel scam.
“I will support that, [Lacson] did not use his PDAF,” Enrile said.
A special audit report released previously by the Commission on Audit (COA) found that senator Ramon Revilla Jr. gave P413.29 million, Juan Ponce Enrile P332.7 million, Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada P191.58 million, and Gregorio Honasan P14.55 million to nongovernment organization linked to Janet Lim-Napoles.
Enrile however said that, in 2009, the P727 million said to have been his PDAF expenditures included P325 million from Senators Escudero, Estrada, Lapid, Legarda, Santiago, and former senators Rudolfo Biazon, and Manuel Roxas II who merely asked for his endorsement as then senate president.
Also attributed to him were some P90 million from the PDAF of congressmen and members of the Commission on Appointments.