Janet Lim-Napoles and Sen. Jinggoy Estrada. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
Those raring to see a face-off between alleged pork barrel queen Janet Lim-Napoles and Sen. Jinggoy Estrada are in for a big disappointment.
By the time Napoles appears at the Senate inquiry into the P10-billion pork barrel scam on Thursday, Estrada will have arrived in the United States.
The senator and his wife, Precy, are flying to the US this week to seek a second opinion from American doctors on the lump in her breast.
“I won’t be around on that date,” Estrada said in an interview over radio dzBB. Besides, he added, he has inhibited himself from the blue ribbon committee’s hearing on the scam from Day One. “Why should I attend?”
The committee has issued a subpoena for Napoles to appear at its Nov. 7 hearing. After earlier deferring to Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales, Senate President Franklin Drilon signed the subpoena on Monday.
And nothing should stop Napoles from telling the truth, Estrada said.
‘Tired of responding’
“She should tell the truth to put the issue to rest. I’m very tired of responding to the issue every day. I get requests for interview every day. If the guilty should be punished, and the innocent acquitted, so be it. I’m confident I have not done anything wrong,” he said.
Estrada, together with Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Ramon Revilla Jr., Napoles and 34 others, is facing a plunder complaint in the Office of the Ombudsman in connection with the alleged conversion of P10-billion pork barrel into kickbacks.
In previous hearings, witnesses told the committee they had notebooks containing records of Napoles’ alleged dealings with the three senators and other lawmakers involving pork barrel-funded ghost projects.
‘Tanda, Sexy, Pogi’
Enrile, Estrada and Revilla were referred to in the notebooks by their code names “Tanda,” “Sexy” and “Pogi,” respectively, they said.
Revilla earlier said he would stay away from the Nov. 7 hearing to allow his colleagues to question Napoles freely.
Enrile, for his part, said that if he were Napoles’ lawyer, he would caution her against appearing in the Senate in view of the investigation by the Ombudsman.
“But if she decides to appear, I will welcome that. Inasmuch as I have inhibited myself from participating in the ongoing investigation, I will welcome her testimony in the hearing,” Enrile said last week.
Estrada also said there was no basis for Justice Secretary Leila de Lima’s request for the cancellation of their passports since no charges have been filed against them.
He said he is not a fugitive, has not been convicted of a criminal offense, nor has he acquired his passport fraudulently—three conditions for the cancellation under the passport law, he said.
But should the Ombudsman file the charges against him in the Sandiganbayan while he is in the United States, Estrada said he would fly home to face the charges.
“I will not hide. I will face all the charges,” he said, recalling that he and his father, then deposed President Joseph Estrada, did not evade arrest for the plunder charges filed against them in the Sandiganbayan more than a decade ago.
Otherwise, he said he would ask his lawyers to comment on De Lima’s request to the Department of Foreign Affairs to cancel his passport.