Lawyer Levito Baligod: Very good working relationship. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Lawyer Levito Baligod on Wednesday said he had “very good working relationship” with his erstwhile client Benhur Luy.
“We are committed to help each other in prosecuting all these cases. So there’s no problem there,” Baligod said at the weekly Fernandina forum in San Juan City.
Quoting the March 3 letter of Luy to him, Baligod clarified he was not fired but “released” from his services in the illegal detention, qualified theft and slander cases filed against the whistle-blower in the Pasig and Manila Regional Trial Courts.
He admitted he did not have enough time because he was busy attending to his advocacies: to “exact accountability” from those responsible for the alleged racket involving the diversion of P10 billion from the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) to ghost projects and kickbacks.
Baligod also said he had participated at least five times in relief distribution to victims of Super Typhoon Yolanda in Leyte province.
He said in the “public interest cases” such as plunder and malversation, he “technically” did not lawyer for the pork barrel scam witnesses, including Luy, but simply helped them during the inquiries conducted by the National Bureau of Investigation.
“Technically, or strictly speaking, I really didn’t lawyer for the whistle-blowers,” he said.
Incongruity
Baligod said his being dropped as Luy’s lawyer was to avoid the “incongruity of the legal situation.”
“Remember that I am the private complainant in several cases filed in the Ombudsman,” he said, referring to the plunder charges that implicated Senators Ramon Revilla Jr., Juan Ponce Enrile and Jinggoy Estrada and businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged mastermind behind the pork barrel racket.
Baligod said the move even strengthened the government hand. “We are now able to bring in more lawyers, more hands on the table, so to speak, to help us prepare the witnesses in the forthcoming litigation in the Sandiganbayan,” he said.
Since “essential” information had already been extracted from Luy, Baligod said he felt his job was done.
He said this meant he could now “move on to other potential witnesses so that we can complete the so-called chain of evidence to link the three indispensable parties”—Napoles, the legislators and the implementing agencies.
Baligod said evidence against the agencies would be provided by Dennis Cunanan, the director general of state-run Technology Resource Center, Rhodora Mendoza, Victor Cacal and two other government officials whose names he said he couldn’t mention.
No one has access to Luy
Malacañang on Wednesday brushed aside suggestions that it had a hand in Luy’s move against Baligod who told the Inquirer on Tuesday that “someone wants to control” Luy.
At a news briefing in the Palace, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said there was no indication President Aquino would summon Baligod, Luy and Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to a meeting in Malacañang anytime soon to help the three principal protagonists patch things up.
Lacierda acknowledged Baligod’s contribution in the filing of the plunder cases and pointed to the lawyer’s statement that he was not going to waver in his commitment to help in the prosecution of those responsible.
De Lima dismissed Baligod’s claims that someone was trying to manipulate Luy.
“Who can control him?” De Lima asked. She pointed out that Luy was under the department’s Witness Protection Program.
“Precisely because of security concerns that we don’t want just anyone to have access to him and influence him. We are very conscious of that,” she said.
Revilla’s lawyer, Joel Bodegon, said Luy’s move against Baligod was a “vain attempt” to give the lawyer a way out of a disbarment case the senator had filed.
“Attorney Baligod is guilty of violating the rule against representing conflicting interests,” he said. Baligod, he said, was representing both the accused and accusers.—With reports from Christine O. Avendaño, TJ Burgonio and Michael Lim Ubac