I’ll quit if Tatad can prove claims, vows Lacierda

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda has offered to resign if Ferdinand Marcos’ information minister, former Sen. Francisco “Kit” Tatad, can prove that alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles had lunch with President Aquino hours before she surrendered to him at Malacañang last month.

“If he can prove to me that Napoles had lunch with the President, I will resign, simple as that. Let me also say that if he doesn’t prove his claim, then he should stop. He should apologize to us. I mean, we’re giving him too much news already. It’s all used. It’s all not true, obviously,” said Lacierda.

He said Tatad continued to spin “tall tales” against Aquino without backing them with proof. He said he was still waiting for Tatad to identify his sources who claimed that the President and Napoles were in conference with other Palace officials for almost six hours on Aug. 28, the day the scam suspect surrendered to Aquino through Lacierda at around 9 p.m.

One week after making that claim in his newspaper column, Tatad came out with another claim on Monday that the President had used Napoles “as a conduit to release from P49 billion to P69 billion in pork to members of Congress to induce them to impeach Chief Justice Renato Corona and to ensure the passage of the reproductive health (RH) bill.”

Tatad again based his information on sources he would not identify.

“If he has any documents to prove that, then show it. He just keeps on giving us innuendos. I mean, we are a very transparent administration,” said Lacierda.

He said the impeachment of Corona and the passage of the RH bill did not need any special prodding from Malacañang.

“As far as we know, they were based on the judgment of the congressmen and the senators. The senators made their judgment, the congressmen made their judgment. You know, I can categorically say that’s not true,” he said.

Lacierda also said the Palace was waiting for a supposedly explosive exposé to be made by one of the accused in the P10-billion pork barrel scam, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, against political allies of the President in a privilege speech in the Senate.

Estrada, along with Napoles, Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Ramon Revilla Jr. and 34 others, has been charged with plunder and malversation by the National Bureau of Investigation in the Office of the Ombudsman.

“We will just wait for what that speech is,” Lacierda said.

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