Lacson twits Santiago sneering at Luy’s files

MANILA, Philippines—After finding her name on Benhur Luy’s list, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago on Wednesday took back her word and belittled the whistle-blower’s files on senators that had dealt with Janet Lim-Napoles.

And Secretary Panfilo Lacson ended up twitting Santiago over the uncanny situation she had found herself in.

On Tuesday, Santiago bristled at Lacson’s confirmation on TV that she was on Napoles’ list, even attacking her former colleague by calling him a closet gay.

“I am pushing to get the list of Benhur Luy. I understand that the Luy list is substantiated by documents and details,” she said in her statement on Tuesday.

Quaking in her shoes?

On Wednesday, Lacson, who has been trading barbs with his erstwhile colleague for some time, could not help but observe Santiago’s sudden turnaround.

“Now that the Benhur Luy list is out, the Senate self-proclaimed antipork ‘crusader’ must be quaking in her shoes while cracking her head thinking of some crazy pickup lines to divert the issue from her P2.5-million rebate, aka, kickback from her P10 million through a Napoles NGO,” he said in a text message to reporters.

“Barely one day before Luy’s list came out, she was saying that Luy’s list was more credible,” said Lacson, the government’s rehabilitation czar in typhoon-devastated Eastern Visayas.

“Understandably, crooks often forget petty transactions since they would likely use the loot on less significant expenditures. They only remember the big ones that enter their fat bank accounts. A lifestyle check is in order,” he said.

Santiago said Luy’s list had not been authenticated under the Rules of Court and hence, inadmissible as evidence. In the same breath, she sought to confront Luy and Napoles about it.

“For the record, I denounce as false, the allegations against me drawn from the Luy list. All the documents are fake. I have no clue about the alleged details, which are all falsified or fictitious,” the senator said in a statement.

Based on Luy’s records, Santiago allotted P5 million of her Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) to coffee growers in Cabadbaran, Agusan del Norte, in 2005, and agent Zenaida Ducut received a P2.5-million rebate on the senator’s behalf.

Santiago claimed that the “Napoles Gang” “merely forged certain public documents and used certain names like mine to pad their in-house records.”

“Presumably, there are other people who, like me, are innocent, but whose names and identities have been stolen,” she said. “Someone has made money by using my name, and I will make that person pay, big time.”

Getting wind of Lacson’s comment, Santiago issued another statement.

Curiouser, curiouser

“Notably, in today’s papers, Pinky Lacson is quoted as saying that I am not in the Lacson list but I am in the Luy list. How would Lacson have known this, except by participating in faking, and then disseminating the Luy list?” she said.

“As Alice in Wonderland said: ‘This is curiouser and curiouser,’” she added.

Citing an online news item that Luy’s lawyer, Raji Mendoza, distanced himself from Luy’s files, Santiago said the “fake Luy list” could have been manufactured and distributed by a syndicate, which “has successfully led the broadsheet on a wild goose chase.”

“I am willing to overlook this mistake on the part of the broadsheet, on the basis of the saying that journalism is literature in a hurry,” she said. “But if the list is unauthenticated, what is its paternity?”

Identity theft

Santiago said she would confront Luy and Napoles about Luy’s list. She said the Senate blue ribbon committee should grant her the right to meet the witnesses face-to-face.

“If such a confrontation materializes, I would consider it extremely unfortunate that, under the Constitution, I will not be allowed to use violence against those guilty of identity theft. My name has been used in vain by the Napoles Gang of thieves,” she said.

Santiago said she thought that if Luy’s list included documents, these would be first authenticated before publication. “Silly me,” she said.

“The Luy list has no proof of the attestation of any public document, and no proof of the authenticity of any private document. Thus, the Luy list constitutes no proof at all against me and others like me. The Luy list is nothing but mudslinging. How sad for our country that such villainy can come to pass,” she said.

“If corruption is this bad, maybe I should run for president, on the same anticorruption platform from which I have fulminated against all these years. And maybe I should deliver a privilege speech against you-know-who,” she added.

“I understand that his official boss is vexed, because of the grandiloquent ambitions of this rogue in uniform,” she continued.

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