Cayetano camp refutes allegation he’s using city funds for political ads

Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — The camp of Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano on Friday strongly denied a lawmaker’s insinuation that he was using the funds of Taguig City for his political advertisements, calling it “outrageous allegations.”

“The spokesperson of the Vice President is at it again – peddling stacks of lies after lies against Sen. Cayetano in an obvious attempt to divert the attention of the people from the massive corruption charges leveled – from almost all directions – against the Vice President, who thinks he can keep on hiding from the truth,” Cayetano’s chief of staff, Shellah Mae Famador, said in a statement.

“But in the interest of transparency and accountability, allow us to respond even to these outrageous allegations,” Famador said.

“First, no public funds were used to pay for the Taguig ads and, second, the amount spent on these is nowhere near the figures being claimed by Rep. Tiangco in his attempt to misdirect the people from the billion-peso corruption scandals involving VP Binay.”

Tiangco is Navotas Representative Toby Tiangco, one of the spokesmen of Vice President Jejomar Binay, who questioned the funds being used by Cayetano for his political ads to promote the city of Taguig.

The incumbent city mayor, Lani, is the wife of the senator.

“The cost of the Cayetano ads has been estimated at around P500 million but the senator has not been candid about who is paying for the ads and if Taguig funds were used,” Tiangco said in a statement Thursday.

Tiangco issued the statements in response to the senator’s allegation that Binay tried to use Pag-Ibig funds to run a political ads.

But Famador said Tiangco’s allegations were just all “lies.”

“These are all lies. Rep. Tiangco spews lies all the time to earn his keep as VP Binay’s surrogate,” she said.

“These lies are similar to the accusations against Taguig City on the alleged adverse COA (Commission on Audit) report which never indicated there were ghost employees in the local government and also the accusations against some of the witnesses in the ongoing investigations,” she added.

In an attempt to malign Cayetano, Famador said Tiango failed to realize that his own boss, Binay, has not sufficiently explained to the Filipino people the corruption allegations being hurled at him.

“And because of this, people are starting to believe he (Binay) is guilty. While Sen. Cayetano does the opposite, even if charges they fabricate border on the outrageous,” she said.

Famador then reiterated Cayetano’s challenge to the Vice President and his spokesmen to just simply face the charges against him in the Senate and allow witnesses like Ebeng Baloloy, Gerry Limlingan, Laureano Gregorio and others to surface and tell the truth, if indeed they were innocent and had nothing to hide.

“We again reiterate that Sen. Cayetano has always been open and, in fact, is the only one who opened his books during the pork barrel scandal and even signed a waiver of bank secrecy. He challenges VP Binay and his people to do the same if indeed they have nothing to hide,” Famador added.