Justice Secretary Leila de Lima INQUIRER.net file photo
MANILA, Philippines—Justice Secretary Leila De Lima on Monday confirmed that pork barrel scam respondents, now government witnesses Dennis Cunanan and Ruby Tuason, are receiving death threats.
The Justice Chief said the threats which the witnesses have been receiving are now being verified.
“There are real security concerns surrounding Cunanan and the other witnesses…We are still verifying those reports. We want to be very careful,” De Lima told reporters.
She assured, however, that there is enough security measures in place to ensure the safety of the witnesses.
“We cannot afford to ignore those threats…The WPP (Witness Protection Program) in coordination with the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) are doubling their effort and security measures,” De Lima said.
Cunanan, former Director General of the Technology Resource Center (TRC), revealed that his children are receiving calls from unidentified persons asking for information about their father and that the family’s Quezon City residence is being “cased” by unidentified men.
De Lima they are also providing protection for the family.
The witnesses, meantime, will not be barred from speaking engagements such as the one recently attended by Tuason before a group of students.
“We cannot really prevent them, we have no choice but to allow them and secure them,” De Lima said.
Despite the threats, Cunanan is set to appear before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing on the “pork barrel” scam on Thursday.
Cunanan, in a 36-page affidavit, claimed that Senators Bong Revilla, Jinggoy Estrada, and Juan Ponce Enrile, through his chief of staff, lawyer Gigi Reyes, funnelled millions of their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) to bogus non-government organizations (NGOs) linked to alleged scam brains Janet Lim Napoles, through the TRC as implementing agency.
Revilla, Estrada, Enrile, Reyes, and Napoles are also respondents in the “pork” case, now pending before the Office of the Ombudsman.
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