Guingona: It’s a 3-pt shot

POWER TANDEM Whistle-blower Benhur Luy talks to Ruby Tuason, a witness in the Senate blue ribbon committee investigation of the P10-billion pork barrel scam. RICHARD A. REYES

MANILA, Philippines—Sen. Teofisto Guingona III compared her testimony to a “three-point shot that wasn’t only a buzzer-beater but also a winning shot” in the game of basketball.

Guingona, chair of the Senate blue ribbon committee, said it was the first time that a witness directly testified kickback money was given to a senator. “That is very, very essential,” he said.

Ruby Tuason, 62, a former Malacañang social secretary, on Thursday told Guingona’s committee how she delivered to Sen. Jinggoy Estrada’s office in a wheeled luggage P8 million to P10 million in kickbacks from an alleged P10-billion pork barrel scam engineered by businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles.

On questioning by Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, Tuason said Estrada was in his sixth-floor office in the Senate building when she made the payoff, upon instruction by Napoles, sometime in 2008. She said she made cash deliveries to Estrada’s office at least twice and at other times, to his Greenhills residence in San Juan City.

“I don’t exactly remember how much but if it’s that kind of bag, I would presume it could be something like 10 million [pesos]. Perhaps, 8 to 10 (million pesos),” Tuason said, testifying a week after her return from the United States where she had fled after the scandal broke out six months ago.

Tuason, who is facing plunder charges in the Office of the Ombudsman in connection with the alleged Napoles racket and has applied to become a state witness, said there were also times that she would give smaller payoffs, P1 million for instance, to Estrada.

“That would fit in my bag. Because I carry a huge bag,” Tuason said.

She mentioned that there was a time she gave money to Estrada at the Zirkoh comedy bar in Greenhills. She said Napoles and her husband, Jaime, witnessed the turnover.

Aside from details already mentioned in her sworn statement submitted to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Tuason said Estrada himself and Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile’s chief of staff, lawyer Jessica Lucila “Gigi” Reyes, offered millions of pesos in public funds for Napoles’ network of dubious nongovernment organizations (NGOs).

The NGOs were allegedly used to channel allocations from the lawmakers’ Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) aimed at alleviating rural poverty to ghost projects and kickbacks. The racket was exposed by Benhur Luy, a former Napoles employee.

Recounting accounts of the transactions detailed in her 15-page sworn statement, Tuason said she was met by a member of Estrada’s staff at the Senate’s basement parking area and accompanied to the elevator and Estrada’s office on the building’s top floor.

Tuason identified the man as Alfredo de los Reyes after she was shown pictures of Estrada’s staff during the hearing.

“Then I went to the office of Senator Estrada. I placed it in his private room, beside his chair,” Tuason said.

Payoff to Enrile aide

“Was Estrada there?” Trillanes asked.

“Yeah. There was a time when he wasn’t there because he was in session.  I just waited for him. But usually he’s there,” Tuason replied.

She said Estrada knew whenever she would deliver the kickbacks because she would call him. “I would tell him, I’m coming over to bring it. Then I will bring it and leave it with him.”

She said she also would tell Estrada how much money was in the bag. “I just tell him. There, for instance, is eight million,” Tuason said.

As to cash deliveries to Reyes, Tuason said she would meet Enrile’s senior aide in posh Makati and Taguig restaurants—Tsukiji, Gourmand, L’Opera and Mamou.

“Let’s say, for example, I have the bag. I will come down from the car to go to the restaurant and if her driver is there, I will just give the bag to her driver,” Tuason said.

Tuason said she would then tell Reyes how much was delivered. She said she would also give a piece of paper from Benhur Luy and the JLN group about how much money Reyes would receive.

Asked how she told Reyes that she was going to give her money from Napoles, Tuason said, “She knows that the reason why we were going to see each other was because I was going to hand her money.”

Inkling of payoff

Trillanes asked Tuason if she believed Enrile knew Reyes was collecting kickbacks from the senator’s PDAF disbursements.

“He never even mentioned the word PDAF to me,” Tuason said. “Considering how many these transactions were, maybe he had an inkling.” Pressed for a categorical answer, she said, “I can only presume that he knows.”

Trillanes told Tuason that the public was watching if she would cover up for anybody after she decided to become a state witness and come under the DOJ’s witness protection program. She said she only entered the deals “at the start and at the end and when there were payments to be made.”

“So, when they tell me that they have P30 million, I call Benhur to tell him they have P30 million and ask what they intend to do with it,” Tuason said.

Smart woman

Asked by Trillanes who in Estrada’s and Enrile’s offices called her to inform her of the availability of funds for conversion into fat kickbacks by Napoles’ NGOs, Tuason said, “In the office of Senator Enrile it was Attorney Gigi and or sometimes it was… Mr. Evangelista.”

Tuason was referring to Jose Antonio Evangelista, the deputy chief of staff in Enrile’s office. Evangelista, along with Enrile, Estrada and Reyes, was in the first batch of those named in the plunder complaint.

“In the office of Senator Estrada it was Senator Estrada. We’re rather close,” Tuason added.

Tuason was the former social secretary of Estrada’s father, former President and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada, when he was still in Malacañang. Jinggoy Estrada himself acknowledged that Tuason was a family friend.

At one point, Trillanes said he found Tuason’s affidavit wanting and Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago observed that the witness was “trying to tread on as few toes as possible.”

“You’re a smart, sophisticated woman. You know more than this,” Trillanes said. The DOJ, he said, should get more information from her if she is to become a state witness.

A mere ‘gofer’

Even so, Santiago called Tuason a “perfect witness” for the prosecution.

‘PERFECT WITNESS’ Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago gestures as she questions Ruby Tuason at the continuation of the Senate hearing on the pork barrel scam. NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

Santiago suggested a reason for Tuason’s hesitation: Her friend Alice Eduardo was Enrile’s business partner in the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (Ceza).

“Senator Enrile is using a common friend for his scam in the Ceza. She and Alice Eduardo are close friends, and she didn’t want to embarrass her friend,” she later told reporters.

Eduardo, president and CEO of Sta. Elena Construction & Development Corp. who has close ties to Reyes, had been awarded the contract for the  1,000-meter, P5.1-billion breakwater project under the Port Irene rehabilitation and development program.

Eduardo is president of Sta. Fe Builders Dredging & Equipment Corp., whose chair, Neal Jose O. Gonzales, is the brother of Reyes.

But the mere fact that Enrile would pick up Reyes during her meetings with Tuason showed he was “complicit in the conspiracy,” Santiago said.

Otherwise, Santiago said Tuason was an “eyewitness” to the scam, and met all the requirements to be a state witness. Tuason’s testimony, she said, was “sufficient” to convict the key players in the scandal beyond reasonable doubt.

“Here we have a person who personally dealt with some of the accused here, particularly the senators involved,” she said. If at all, she said Tuason was a mere “gofer.”

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