No record in Comelec of Napoles poll donations

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—No senators received campaign funds from alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles, based on the campaign finance reports they submitted to the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

Comelec Chair Sixto Brillantes, in an interview with reporters, said Wednesday the poll body had not come across any campaign donations from Napoles for senatorial and party-list candidates during the previous elections.

Brillantes said that based on the assessment of the statement of contributions and expenditures (SOCEs) of the candidates as well as political parties, the name of Napoles as campaign donor did not come out.

“We went over the SOCEs of political parties, senators and party-lists to check the name of Janet Napoles, but there was none,” Brillantes said.

In an affidavit, Napoles’ claimed that she contributed campaign funds to former Sen. Manny Villar, Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano and Sen. Francis Escudero.

Brillantes said the Comelec would conduct another review of the 2007, 2010, and 2013 SOCEs to see if Napoles’ name came up as a contributor to any of the candidates.

Last year, the Comelec said that a losing party-list group received campaign contributions in 2007 from Benhur Luy, the whistle-blower of the P10-billion pork barrel scam. Luy apparently donated P200,000 to Ang Samahan ng mga Mangangalakal sa Ikauunlad ng Lokal na Ekonomiya (A-Smile) party-list.

The Comelec also said that a certain “Mr. and Mrs. Napoles” donated, also in 2007, P30,000 to a losing congressional candidate in Pasig City.