Cayetano dares Enrile to sue Gigi Reyes

Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano on Tuesday dared Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile to file charges against his former chief of staff, Jessica Lucila “Gigi” Reyes, and deputy chief of staff, Jose Antonio Evangelista, after they were implicated in the P10-billion pork barrel fund scam.

Cayetano said that if Enrile was denying any hand in the racket that converted his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allocations into millions of pesos in kickbacks, he was expected to pursue cases against members of his staff that witnesses had linked to the funds abuse.

“What’s the logical thing to do for a senator? Isn’t it to fire and file cases against his employees if he thinks they were the ones that committed the irregularity?” Cayetano told reporters just before Tuesday’s session.

“But he has allowed Attorney Gigi to leave. Mr. Evangelista, according to reports, is still with his office. In fact, according to my information, is still also with his office,” Cayetano added.

Cayetano said there were only two choices to make whenever a subalttern was found to have committed malfeasance.

“Why hasn’t Senator Enrile filed any case against his employees? If I found out that there was an anomaly in my office, I have only two choices—fire them and file a case or coddle and hide them,” Cayetano said.

“You know I will not discuss my case in public, please, OK? I have been charged so please respect my right not to comment on it,” Enrile told reporters when asked for comment.

Enrile’s lawyer, Enrique de la Cruz, in a radio interview in 2013 said that the senator didn’t endorse projects to be undertaken by Janet Lim-Napoles’ dubious nongovernment organizations (NGOs).

“Senator Enrile’s instruction was clear… In the endorsements that he signed, he allocated his funds to local government units—provinces, towns and barangays. If he had employees that didn’t follow this or did something to divert the said funds to NGOs, it wasn’t in compliance with Senator Enrile’s instructions,” De la Cruz said then.

“Perhaps it might not be justified to make Senator Enrile accountable for the said wrongdoing or violation of the law,” De la Cruz added.

Cayetano, in a statement on Tuesday, said that there are documents that showed Enrile authorized Reyes and Evangelista to sign PDAF papers on his behalf.

Both Reyes and Evangelista were implicated by plunder respondent and now provisional state witness Ruby Tuason in the hearing last week of the Senate blue ribbon committee on the pork barrel scam.

Cayetano said the documents were allegedly signed by Enrile and addressed to the Commission on Audit.

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