Binay to cooperate with De Lima probe

Vice President Jejomar Binay on Sunday said he would cooperate with the Department of Justice in the investigation of allegations of corruption against him depending on what kind of inquiry the agency would do. But his party, the United Nationalist Alliance, said the “sudden interest” of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima (inset) in Binay’s investigation proved her bias against rivals of the ruling Liberal Party. INQUIRER.net file photos

MANILA, Philippines–Vice President Jejomar Binay on Sunday said he would cooperate with the Department of Justice (DOJ) in the investigation of allegations of corruption against him depending on what kind of inquiry the agency would do.

But his party, the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), said the “sudden interest” of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima in Binay’s investigation proved her bias against rivals of the ruling Liberal Party (LP).

De Lima said last week that she had directed the National Bureau of Investigation to find two of Binay’s longtime aides who had not been attending a Senate blue ribbon subcommittee that is inquiring into the

alleged overpricing of the P2.28-billion Makati City Hall Building II, Gerardo “Gerry” Limlingan and Eduviges “Ebeng” Baloloy.

Former Makati Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado told the subcommittee that Limlingan and Baloloy were the ones who received from him duffel bags containing millions of pesos in kickbacks from contractors for Binay when the Vice President was still the mayor of Makati City.

Limlingan, allegedly a front for Binay in a security agency that has contracts with the Makati City government, and Baloloy are believed to have knowledge of other irregularities involving Binay and his family but the Senate investigators cannot find them.

De Lima said she would meet this week with Mercado and two other witnesses in the Senate inquiry—lawyer Ronaldo Bondal and Nicolas Enciso—to get more information from them about the plunder charges they had filed against the Vice President and his son, current Makati Mayor Jejomar Erwin Binay Jr.

Asked by reporters on Sunday if he would face the DOJ investigation, Binay said: “Yes. But that depends on what kind of investigation [the DOJ will do].”

He did not say, however, what kind of investigation he wanted from the DOJ. Together with Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista and other Quezon City officials, he attended Mass at the Quezon Memorial Circle. The Mass was held as part of the city’s 75th founding anniversary celebration.

Due process

Binay said he was glad that President Aquino had said he was entitled to due process.

He said he had not seen or personally spoken to Aquino because the President had just returned from a trip to Indonesia, while he had just returned from an almost weeklong visit to provinces in Mindanao.

Asked about the many allegations raised against him by Mercado, including P4 billion in kickbacks from 10 infrastructure projects awarded by the Makati city government to Hillmarc’s Construction Corp. and a 350-hectare property in Rosario town, Batangas province, Binay said: “God will take care of that.”

As for his detractors, he said, “I leave them to God.”

Nothing new

Binay described Mercado as “drunk from his lies,” first claiming that Binay owned a 30-hectare property in Batangas then changing the size of the property to 350 hectares.

He said Mercado’s allegations were nothing new and that he had gone through a lifestyle check when he was mayor because of the same issues.

To the reporters, he said: “Please be truthful.”

He said journalists continued to ask if he owned the Batangas property even after GMA-7 had reported it had gotten a certification from the municipal government of Rosario that showed “we don’t have a property [there].”

Binay urged the reporters to go to the Rosario town hall to check out the information.

Binay reiterated that he would not appear in the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee inquiry despite prodding from Senators Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Francis Escudero.

Prejudged

He said the blue ribbon subcommittee had already prejudged him.

As for the people who said he should explain the charges against him, Binay said he had been answering and explaining for so long but the same people just did not want to listen to him.

Binay went to Quezon City after participating in the Boy Scouts of the Philippines’ “Jamboree on the Run” where he walked from Quirino Grandstand at Rizal Park to the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP).

At the CCP, reporters asked Binay about the expressions of support from some joggers who saw him walking along Roxas Boulevard.

“They shouted, ‘Nobody leaves anybody behind, we’ll fight,’” he said, adding that expression of support showed his detractors had reason to be scared of him and to vilify him.

Binay said the demolition job on him showed that politics in the Philippines had not changed.

‘Sudden interest’

Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco, interim president of UNA, said De Lima’s “sudden interest” in the Senate investigation of Binay confirmed reports that the LP faction of Senate President Franklin Drilon, Interior Secretary Mar Roxas and Budget Secretary Florencio Abad and its Palace allies were “behind the demolition job” on the Vice President.

“Secretary de Lima, like the three senator-inquisitors, has prejudged the matter. The NBI will not contradict their boss or issue findings that will embarrass her. The NBI and the DOJ are now parties to the witch-hunt,” Tiangco said in a statement.

He took exception to De Lima’s statement that Binay’s accusers were credible even though she claimed she had not spoken to them yet and had not seen the evidence they supposedly have.

“But we need to ask her: What has happened to the other cases involving friends of the President?” Tiangco said.

What has happened to De Lima’s investigation into the Malampaya Fund, MRT-3 extortion, the pork barrel scam and other alleged irregularities she had vowed to pursue, he asked.

LP untouchable

Tiangco said De Lima had no plans to hound LP members involved in the Malampaya Fund scam and administration allies involved in the pork barrel scam.

“It is deplorable that Secretary de Lima, who should administer justice equally, is doing everything to protect the allies of the administration even beyond 2016. This only goes to show that De Lima is not keen in sending to jail allies of the President [and this] has eroded her credibility as justice secretary,” Tiangco said.

He said that while De Lima had shown some zeal in taking part in Binay’s investigation, she had yet to look into the affidavit of accused plunderer Janet Lim-Napoles who admitted having dealt with 18 senators and 100 representatives in the P10-billion pork barrel scam.

De Lima, he said, also showed the same lack of interest in looking into irregularities in the disbursement of funds from the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) even if the Commission on Audit itself had uncovered irregularities in the deployment of these funds.

The Supreme Court struck down the DAP as illegal on July 1.

Only 3 cases

Tiangco said De Lima promised in May that she would be filing the next batch of cases in the pork barrel scam, but five months later only the cases against opposition members—Senators Jinggoy Estrada, Bong Revilla and Juan Ponce Enrile—had made it to the Sandiganbayan.

Tiangco claimed that De Lima automatically exonerated all 97 mayors involved in the P900-million Malampaya Fund scam after the local government officials “promised to support the DOJ chief when she seeks higher office in 2016.”

He also asked what has happened to the DOJ-NBI probe on the claim by Czech Ambassador to the Philippines Josef Rychtar that MRT officials attempted to extort $30 million from a Czech train builder.

“Not only is she dipping her hands into the [investigation of Binay], she is also already declaring the accusers in the case credible even if she has yet to speak to them or see their evidence. But we need to ask her: What has happened to the other cases involving friends of the President?”

Questionable order

UNA interim secretary general JV Bautista said De Lima’s

order to the NBI to find Limlingan and Baloloy for the Senate was questionable, as the DOJ and the Senate were supposed to be operating under separate branches of the government.

“The subpoena issuing power of the Senate, like its power to cite in contempt, is merely implied from its power to legislate. The Senate can only enforce its subpoena process through its sergeant at arms, who is also the officer authorized to serve an order of arrest after a contempt citation,” Bautista said.

“If Mr. Limlingan, for example, is served a subpoena by the NBI, it is an invalid service, being an undue interference by the executive branch [in] a purely legislative exercise,” he said.

Harassment

Bautista said De Lima was intent on harassing Binay and his allies because she herself was aware that no crime had been determined yet by the Senate subcommittee for the simple reason that there was still no committee report.

“The DOJ has no place in this Senate investigation. Either De Lima stops her acts of harassment using the NBI, or court remedies, as well as disciplinary actions against her, would now be called for,” Bautista said.

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