Mayors, too, pocketed huge pork kickbacks, witness tells court

SENATORS and lawmakers were not the only ones who raked in huge kickbacks from the pork barrel scam. Even mayors had supposedly received cuts from Janet Lim-Napoles, a witness told the Sandiganbayan Wednesday.

During Napoles’ bail hearing for her plunder case before the antigraft court Third Division, Merlina Suñas said mayors from Umingan and Sual in Pangasinan supposedly received kickbacks from Napoles. The alleged payoff took place at the businesswoman’s office in Discovery Suites, Ortigas.

Suñas said the mayors supposedly received from Napoles kickbacks of 10 percent in the form of standard operating procedure or “SOP.”

She said the commissions came from the pork barrel pet projects of lawmakers in the mayors’ local government units (LGU).

“Direcho na yung pondo sa accounts ng mga LGUs. So yung pondo sa implementing agency, dun na sa munisipyo. Dun na kami mangungulekta [ng SOP],” Suñas said.

“Ang binibigay ni madame Janet, 10 percent… Hindi ko pa na-e-encounter na hindi pa siya nagbigay sa mga LGUs,” she added.

Suñas only managed to recall a certain Mayor “Tombokon” from Umingan as receiving kickbacks through his vice mayor from Napoles.

Earlier, an Umingan mayor named Eldred Tumbokon testified before the court that though his municipality was named a beneficiary of a P5-million pork barrel project of Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, he denied receiving any proceeds from the project intended for marginal sectors. Enrile is under hospital detention for plunder.

Napoles is detained for plunder for allegedly masterminding the scheme of spending lawmakers’ Priority Development Assistance Funds (PDAF) in ghost projects for kickbacks. AC