Senator Estrada to deliver privilege speech on ‘incredible witnesses’

Ruby Tuason and Sen. Jinggoy Estrada (inset) FILE PHOTOS

MANILA, Philippines—Senator Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada said he will deliver a privilege speech on Wednesday about the “tale of two incredible witnesses.”

Estrada had earlier said that his speech would be about his co-accused Ruby Tuason, and Dennis Cunanan, who have testified against him on the P10 billion pork barrel funds scam.

Tuason was social secretary of the senator’s father, then President Joseph Estrada while Cunanan was director general on-leave of the Technology Resource Center. Both Tuason and Cunanan have directly implicated the senator on the scam.

Senator Estrada said his speech was originally 24-page single space long but he was still trying to shorten it.

“Pero sino-shorten ko, single spaced. Ngayon 20. Pero pinapa-congest ko pa. (I requested it to be shortened. Now it’s 20. I asked for it to be congested).”

“Siguro the tale of two incredible witnesses,” Senator Estrada said of his speech.

Asked if he was saying that Benhur Luy, principal whistleblower in the scam, was more credible than Cunanan, the  senator said, “Si Benhur Luy, wala namang sinasabi na nagbigay siya ng pera sa akin at tumanggap ako ng pera. Wala naman siyang sinasabi sa kanyang affidavit. Ang sinasabi niya direkta kami kay Napoles, which they cannot prove na tumanggap kami ng pera galing kay Napoles. (Benhur Luy did not say that he gave money to me and that I received the money. There was nothing about it in his affidavit. What he was saying is that we went directly to Napoles which they can prove that we received money from Napoles).”

Napoles is detained Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged mastermind of the scam.

During last week’s hearing of the Senate blue-ribbon committee, Cunanan and Luy gave conflicting statements regarding the kickbacks that Napoles allegedly gave to Cunanan.

Luy alleged preparing the money for Cunanan and placed it in a paper bag, which he said he saw the latter carrying after his meeting with Napoles. The TRC chief repeatedly denied the allegation.

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