Estrada disowns Ng, Yenko transactions

MANILA, Philippines–Sen. Jinggoy Estrada on Monday distanced himself from transactions of businessman Juan Ng and former San Juan City Administrator Francis Yenko involving his pork barrel funds, saying he had never authorized them or anybody else to undertake any such deal.

In a statement, Estrada described as “misleading” an Inquirer report saying he had received kickbacks from his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) that were coursed through “conduits.”

“First of all as I have repeatedly mentioned before, I never authorized anybody, Mr. Ng, Mr. Yenko, or whoever to transact with my PDAF. So whatever transactions that they may have, if they have any, I have nothing to do with it,” Estrada said.

“Any supposition that they acted as my conduits in the alleged PDAF scam is mere speculation,” said the senator, who has been detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center at Camp Crame since June last year following his indictment for plunder and graft.

“As the prosecution has so far presented zero concrete evidence against me during the course of the six-month bail proceedings, they now resort to black propaganda and unfair media tactics to make it appear that the evidence against me is overwhelming when in fact and in truth there is none,” Estrada said.

Insisting his claim of innocence, he said the Inquirer article “was clearly a ploy to condition the minds of the public that I stole public funds.”

“This accusation is totally untrue,” Estrada said. “Why was the report first leaked to the media, before being presented to the court or before providing a copy to the respondent…? Clearly we are being tried by publicity here.”

Speaking with reporters after his bail hearing Monday, Estrada said the prosecutors were trying to portray the accused as “thieves.”

“I think that is unfair,” Estrada lamented

The Inquirer report stated that there was no direct transfer to Estrada from the bank accounts of alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles or her nongovernment organizations (NGOs). But it said that there were “significant check deposits or transactions” from Napoles or her NGOs to Estrada’s alleged conduits, and these amounts were supposedly later traced to his bank accounts.

Most of the checks from Napoles and her NGOs allegedly went to the accounts of Ng and Yenko.

According to him, the Inquirer’s “malicious headline” was intended to condition the public to think that he had pocketed public funds.

“This accusation is totally untrue,” he said.

Estrada also blasted the leak to the media of the Anti-Money Laundering Council’s financial investigation report on the transactions involving his PDAF allocations, which he said was apparently the source of the Inquirer story.

He said he had formally and repeatedly sought such reports and other documents so that he would be apprised of the allegations against him and could issue a proper response.

“Clearly we are being tried by publicity here,” he added.

He also said that when the Office of the Ombudsman was investigating him and other respondents, they were not given the chance to rebut the allegations against them.

They were also denied copies of the affidavits of corespondents or witnesses which were cited as basis in filing criminal charges against them, he added.