MANILA, Philippines—The investigator on the bank accounts of Senator Ramon Revilla Jr. said he has no records to support that Janet Lim-Napoles transferred funds to Revilla.
During Revilla’s Thursday bail hearing on plunder over the pork barrel scam, Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) bank investigator Atty. Leigh Von Santos said his team only conducted an inquiry on the cash deposited on Revilla’s bank accounts.
Santos said they examined the cash allegedly received by Atty. Richard Cambe, Revilla’s legislative officer who is co-accused in the plunder charge, but the inquiry was not supported by bank documents.
Cambe was accused of being the middleman of Napoles to Revilla.
Sen. Bong Revilla. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
“We examined it but these are not supported by bank records because these are cash received,” Santos said.
When Atty. Michael Ancheta, Cambe’s counsel, asked Santos if he had banking records that Cambe received cash from Napoles, Santos said he had none.
But he said the ledger of principal whistleblower Benhur Luy showed that Cambe received the cash intended for Revilla.
In an interview after the hearing, Revilla said he felt vindicated that the bank investigator admitted that they had no banking records to support that Napoles gave kickbacks to Revilla.
“Wala namang bank transfer from JLN Corp. to my account. Wala talaga transaction from JLN sa account ko… I’m very confident mananalo tayo sa kasong ito,” Revilla said.
(There is no bank transfer from JLN Corp. to my account. There really is no bank transfer in my account. I am confident I will win this case.)
Santos had testified to the court that Revilla deposited P87.6 million in his and immediate family members’ bank accounts from April 6, 2006 to April 28, 2010.
This was the same period Luy alleged that Revilla, through his aide Cambe, received kickbacks from his projects funded by his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), also known as pork barrel.
The AMLC also said Revilla closed these bank accounts at the height of the scandal.
Though Santos said he had no evidence that Napoles transferred funds to Revilla’s bank accounts, he had told the court that Napoles signed the receipts when her employees withdrew from Napoles-linked foundations millions of pesos believed to have ended up in Revilla’s bank accounts.
Santos also said they had bank records to show that Napoles transferred funds from her corporation to these nongovernment organizations used as dummy fronts for the ghost projects.
The AMLC also found suspicious that Revilla received millions of unexplained wealth at the same time he was alleged to have received kickbacks from Napoles according to Luy’s ledger.
AMLC also said Nature Concepts Development and Realty Corp. controlled by Revilla’s wife Cavite Representative Lani Mercado-Revilla received substantial amounts worth P27.745 million, the bulk of which were deposited close to the dates Cambe allegedly received Revilla’s kickbacks from Luy.
Revilla and his wife also transferred to the company at least P16 million, Santos said.
The AMLC also noted that Mercado-Revilla’s company received the money despite having no operations and having insubstantial capital, Santos said.
Revilla is detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center as he faces plunder for his alleged involvement in the pork barrel scam, the purported scheme of using public funds to ghost projects for kickbacks.
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