What Went Before: Senate ‘pork’ probe

In August last year, the Senate blue ribbon committee, headed by Sen. Teofisto Guingona III, said the committee had decided to look into the multibillion-peso pork barrel scam after initially hedging if it would go for it.

At the opening hearing of the Senate inquiry into the scam on Aug. 30, 2013, Commission on Audit (COA) Chair Grace Pulido-Tan narrated to the committee how Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada, Ramon Revilla Jr. and Gregorio Honasan allocated a total of P1.093 billion of their pork allocations to the bogus nongovernment organizations (NGOs) of Janet Lim-Napoles between 2007 and 2009.

In his nationally televised appearance before the committee last Sept. 12, whistle-blower Benhur Luy recounted how legislators trooped to Napoles to peddle their pork barrel. During his five-hour appearance, Luy said that under the arrangement, senators received a 50-percent cut of the value of a project that Napoles’ NGOs implemented.

Napoles would advance half of the kickbacks once the project was requested either through the House committee on appropriations or the Senate finance committee, Luy said.

He added that the legislators would receive the remainder after the Department of Budget and Management released the special allotment release order.

With half of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allocation usually pocketed by a legislator, Luy said 10 percent of the remaining amount usually went to implementing agencies as “SOP” (standard operating procedure or grease money).

Napoles herself appeared before the blue ribbon committee last Nov. 7, during which the alleged mastermind of the P10-billion scam curtly replied “I don’t know” or invoked her right against self-incrimination and refused to answer the senators’ questions.

In February this year, Ruby Tuason, former social secretary of former President and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada, told the Senate committee that she delivered to Sen. Jinggoy Estrada’s office in a wheeled luggage P8 million to P10 million in kickbacks from Napoles.

‘3-point shot’

Guingona said Tuason’s testimony was like a “three-point shot that wasn’t only a buzzer-beater but also a winning shot” in a basketball game, as it was the first time that a witness directly testified kickback money was given to a senator.

Tuason, who returned from the United States on Feb. 7 and offered to serve as state witness in the pork barrel scam case, also told the senators that she handed millions of pesos to Enrile’s chief of staff, Jessica Lucila “Gigi” Reyes, at posh restaurants in Makati and Taguig cities or in Reyes’ house.

On April 1, Guingona presented the draft report of the committee’s investigation. The report came in an unannounced press conference held an hour before the Ombudsman presented its own report on the scam.

The Senate draft report, still unsigned, recommended an “internal purging” after it found sufficient evidence to file plunder and other charges against Enrile, Estrada and Revilla in connection with the scam.

On the same day, the Office of the Ombudsman announced that it had found probable cause to file plunder and other charges against the three senators and alleged conspirators in the Sandiganbayan.

At the time of the draft report’s release, the panel had already conducted nine hearings, starting with Tan’s testimony and ending with the testimony of Dennis Cunanan, a former deputy chief and later head of the Technology Resource Center.

Apart from Luy and Napoles, other witnesses included former Napoles employees-turned-whistle-blowers Merlina Suñas and Marina Sula, and line agency heads, such as Alan Javellana of National Agribusiness Corp.

Enrile, Revilla and Estrada denied any wrongdoing and inhibited themselves from the Senate hearings.

In June, the Sandiganbayan ordered the arrest of the three senators on plunder and graft charges.–Inquirer Research

Source: Inquirer Archives