‘Senators called Dennis Cunanan’

By: Jerome Aning - 11 years ago

Technology Resource Center Director General Dennis Cunanan. PHOTO FROM www.dost.gov.ph

Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr., who are accused of plunder in the P10-billion pork barrel scam, knew all along that their allocations from the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) were being used for fictitious projects, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said on Friday.

De Lima told a news conference that Dennis Cunanan, former head of the Technology Livelihood Resource Center (now Technology Resource Center or TRC), had been admitted as a provisional state witness and would confirm being called up by the senators or their staff to release PDAF funds to phony aid organizations set up by Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged brains behind the pork barrel scam.

“Cunanan’s proferred testimony flatly debunks or belies the claims of Senators Enrile, Estrada and Revilla that they were not the ones who selected the NGOs (nongovernment organizations) that implemented the projects funded by their PDAFs and that their signatures or those of their staffs or authorized representatives were forged or that they were not aware of the dealings between Napoles NGOs and the TRC,” De Lima said.

She said Cunanan submitted his sworn statement to the Ombudsman Friday morning.

De Lima said Cunanan offered to serve as state witness way back in September last year when the first PDAF-related plunder case was filed with him as one of the respondents.

“We think his (Cunanan) testimony is essential and corroborative to what our whistle-blowers, especially Benhur Luy, have said. Another angle of the story (PDAF scam) has been completed,” she added.

Cunanan stepped forward to tell what he knew about the pork barrel scam two days after President Benigno Aquino III told reporters that other whistle-blowers were coming out after socialite Ruby Tuason, also accused in the massive graft, returned from the United States on Feb. 7 and admitted that she served as Napoles’ bagman and delivered tens of millions of pesos in kickbacks to Estrada and Enrile’s chief aide, Jessica Lucila “Gigi” Reyes.

Don’t look at us

But Malacañang denied that the President had a hand in Cunanan’s turning state witness.

Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma said Mr. Aquino was “speaking in general terms” when he spoke to reporters on Wednesday about new witnesses coming out soon.

Asked about the credibility of Tuason and Sen. Antonio Trillanes’ suspicion that she was a trojan horse working for Enrile, Mr. Aquino replied: “She’s not the only witness available. We have whistle-blowers and many are still coming out.”

The President’s statement did not mean Malacañang was behind the emergence of new whistle-blowers and had a “project to malign certain individuals,” Coloma said.

What the President was saying, Coloma said, was the “importance of uncovering the whole truth” in the pork barrel scam.

After De Lima’s announcement, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago drafted a resolution urging the Senate blue ribbon committee, which is investigating the pork barrel scam, to summon Cunanan to the next public hearing.

Santiago’s staff said she would file the resolution next Monday.

Desperate move

Joel Bodegon, a lawyer for Revilla, said Cunanan’s turning state witness was a desperate move by the government to beef up a “weak plunder case with fabricated testimonies that cannot be backed with credible evidence.”

“Is it that easy to escape liability in three plunder cases? Just say you received a phone call and that’s it?” Bodegon said.

Bodegon pointed to the government’s group of whistle-blowers and Cunanan as the guiltiest in the pork barrel scam.

Revilla’s main defense is that his signature was forged to indicate that he wanted implementing agencies to disburse millions of pesos from his PDAF allocation to Napoles’ dummy aid organizations.

“From the facts of the case, it appears that he (Cunanan) is one of the most guilty, along with Benhur Luy, in defrauding the government. He is part of the syndicate that sourced, handled and pocketed the funds,” Bodegon said.

Bodegon also questioned the circumstances surrounding Cunanan’s testimony.

“This is actually not new. It has been almost six months since Cunanan [began to peddle] these lies, and he was not admitted into the [Witness Protection Program] until now. What went on in those months? Many things could have already been discussed and agreed to,” Bodegon said.

“This is clear that what we are seeing is a contrived testimony,” he added.

Bodegon cast doubt on the propriety of taking in Cunanan as state witness and giving him government protection.

Under the witness protection law, he said, the Department of Justice can grant immunity only to witnesses under the Prosecution Service’s jurisdiction.

Bodegon said the justice department could not interfere with cases under the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman, “a separate constitutional entity, which can never be under the authority of the DOJ.”

“The DOJ is now intruding into the constitutional domain of the Ombudsman. Surely, the Ombudsman will not allow that,” Bodegon said.

He said Revilla’s camp was preparing a complaint for the disbarment of Levito Baligod, the whistle-blowers’ lawyer, for violation of the lawyers’ ethical standards.

“He is more than neck-deep in conflict of interest. He is the lawyer of the accusers, and now he is coming out lawyering for some of the accused. That can’t be,” Bodegon said.

There were no immediate comments on De Lima’s announcement from Estrada and Enrile.

Implementing agency

The TRC is one of the four implementing agencies implicated in the pork barrel scam. According to government investigators, Napoles’ aid organizations—the National Agribusiness Corp., National Livelihood Development Corp. and ZNAC Rubber Estate Corp.—were endorsed to the TRC as implementers of phantom projects and thus served as conduits for the PDAF funds.

Cunanan served as TRC deputy director general from 2004 to 2010, when he was appointed director general replacing Antonio Ortiz. Both Cunanan and Ortiz are respondents in the two PDAF suits filed by the National Bureau of Investigation in the Office of the Ombudsman.

“Cunanan painstakingly cited and discussed the contents of various documents—namely, letters of endorsement, special allocation release orders, memorandums of agreement, project summaries and project proposals—which had come into the TRC’s possession showing that the three senators indeed endorsed certain Napoles NGOs as implementers of the projects under TRC,” De Lima said.

‘Embedded implementers’

“These NGOs were actually ‘identified’ and ‘embedded’ as the ‘project implementers.’ And, in uniformly or similarly worded [memorandums of agreement] executed between the offices of the senators concerned, the TRC and the Napoles NGOs concerned, there is acknowledgment that the senator has endorsed the NGO as implementer of the projects and an express warranty by the senator that the selected NGO is ‘a legitimate and bona fide entity in good standing,’” she said.

De Lima said Cunanan also narrated the “pressures” exerted by the three senators on him and the “lobbying” made by several congressman in the TRC to expedite the release of funds to their chosen NGOs as project implementers.

In his 36-page sworn statement, excerpts of which were released by De Lima, Cunanan recalled phone calls from the offices of the three senators and talking either to their chiefs of staff as designated representatives or to the senators themselves.

Cunanan recounted speaking on the phone with Revilla who confirmed the authorization given to Revilla’s staff, lawyer Richard Cambe, for one project.

“He (Revilla) likewise confirmed to me the fact that he picked and endorsed the NGOs [that] will implement his PDAF-funded projects, and he even admonished me that now that I have been able to talk to him, the PDAF-funded projects of [the] NGO should proceed expeditiously from then on. I did not expect the admonition [from] Senator Revilla. However, I merely replied to him that I am just doing my job,” Cunanan said.

Project follow-up

In another instance, Cunanan said Luy personally went to the TRC to follow up pending projects endorsed by Estrada and Revilla. Cunanan said Luy called Revilla and Estrada’s offices and was able to reach the two senators.

“After initially speaking to some people on the other line, Benhur Luy gave me his phone and asked me to talk to Senator Revilla and later, Senator Estrada. I remember how both Senators Revilla and Estrada admonished me because they thought that the TRC was ‘delaying’ the projects. Both Senators Revilla and Estrada insisted that the TRC should honor their choice of NGO, which they selected to implement the projects, since the projects were funded from their PDAF. They both asked me to ensure that the TRC would immediately act on and approve their respective projects,” Cunanan said.

Cunanan said he was “certain” he was talking to Revilla and Estrada “because I recognized their voices, which I am familiar with since they were both actors and public personalities whose voices I have frequently heard and I am very familiar with.”

“During our meeting, in an obvious attempt to pressure us to immediately approve the projects, he (Luy) took out his cellular phone and called the offices of Senators Revilla and Estrada,” Cunanan said.

Talking to Gigi

There was also a time when he spoke with Enrile’s chief of staff, Jessica Lucila “Gigi” Reyes, and her deputy, lawyer Antonio Evangelista, to form the projects and the authenticity of the signatures on the documents submitted by Enrile’s office for the release of his PDAF funds to an NGO.

“She confirmed to me that she and Attorney Evangelista were duly authorized by Senator Enrile. I know I was talking to Attorney Reyes then because it was the officially listed telephone number of Senator Enrile that I called and she introduced herself to me. She likewise confirmed the authenticity of their signatures in the supporting documents,” Cunanan said.

De Lima said Cunanan also named other lawmakers who allegedly lobbied the TRC for approval of PDAF-funded projects coursed through Napoles’ dummy NGOs.

When pressed by reporters, De Lima named two: Former Muntinlupa City Rep. Ruffy Biazon and former Cibac party-list Rep. Joel Villanueva, now director general of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.

Biazon and Villanueva are allies of President Aquino.

“Most of them have been charged, as for the rest, it’s still ongoing case buildup,” she said, adding that the alleged involvement of Villanueva and other lawmakers were being investigated.

Asked if Cunanan had known all along that the projects and the NGOs were fake and just being used to siphon off funds from the PDAF, De Lima said Cunanan “noticed there [was] something wrong with the NGOs.”

“That’s why when he took over as director general, he instituted certain measures and protocols within the TRC to make the accreditation of NGOs stricter,” she said.

De Lima pointed out, however, that one reason why Cunanan and other implementing agency officials were included in the complaint was because “legally, they had responsibility to make sure that they are dealing with legitimate NGOs [and that] they should have been stricter in processing [the NGOs and and projects].”

De Lima said it did not matter that Cunanan was not personally contacted by Enrile or vice versa.

“It does not matter to us. We are not worried about that at all. It just shows that it’s true that he (Enrile) has in fact given blanket authority to Attorney Reyes,” De Lima said, adding that Cunanan’s testimony matches the disclosures of Luy and Tuason that Reyes was “acting for and on behalf of” of Enrile.

Reply to Revilla

Meanwhile, Interior Secretary Mar Roxas on Friday hit back at Revilla for trying to link him a month ago to an alleged attempt by President Aquino to influence him to vote for the impeachment of then Chief Justice Renato Corona in 2012.

Revilla disclosed the alleged attempt in a privilege speech.

In a three-paragraph statement in Filipino sent to reporters, Roxas said he pitied Revilla, “my former colleague at the Senate.”

“He says just about anything just to cover up the truth. My advice, he should be honest. He should stop inventing scripts. This is not the movies. This is real life wherein there is accountability to every action done,” Roxas said.

“I repeat, Senator Revilla’s problem is Benhur Luy and the other whistle-blowers and the COA (Commission on Audit) documents that repeatedly say that he (Revilla) gave his [PDAF] funds to the fake NGOs of Napoles,” Roxas said.

“If there are other witnesses who would surface and implicate him in this case, it is no longer our fault. It is better for him to answer the accusations leveled against him and explain the official documents linking him to the Napoles scam,” Roxas said. With reports from Michael Lim Ubac and Nikko Dizon