Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile will take the floor on Wednesday to deliver a privilege speech but he refused to say if it would be about the alleged P10 billion “pork barrel” scam.
Enrile said his speech would be “factual” but not as destructive as Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiya) that ravaged the country last November 8.
“Yeah, tomorrow. I will just say something,” he told reporters on Tuesday when asked if it was true that he would deliver a privilege speech.
Asked if his speech would be explosive, Enrile said: “Hindi naman. Hindi naman ako Yolanda e (Not really. I am not Yolanda).”
“Factual lang ang sasabihin ko (What I will say is factual),” said Enrile, who has been charged with plunder at the Office of the Ombudsman in connection with the “pork” scam.
He did not elaborate and appealed to media to just wait for his speech.
Enrile was again back at the limelight after the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that he was the mastermind of the scam based on an eight-page memorandum by the Ombudsman’s fact-finding team.
If indeed there was a memo, then the preliminary investigation being conducted by the anti-graft body was just a “moro-moro,” the senators’ lawyers said in a letter to Ombudsman Conchita carpio-Morales dated November 22.
But Enrile said his lawyers’ remarks were in reference only to the mastermind tag in one newspaper report.
Asked if he still trusts the preliminary investigation being conducted by the fact-finding team of the Ombudsman, Enrile said: “Oo naman. Pero tingnan natin (Yes of course. But let’s see).”
Originally posted at 4:47 p.m. | November 26, 2013