Court told of Luy’s peso, dollar bank accounts

Principal whistleblower Benhur Luy on Friday admitted to having bank accounts that contained over a million pesos and two dollar accounts while under the employ of accused pork barrel mastermind Janet Lim Napoles.

In his testimony during Napoles’ bail hearing from plunder, Luy was confronted by Napoles’ lawyer Dennis Buenaventura about his bank accounts in United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB), Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), and Metrobank, all under his name.

Buenaventura showed a partial report from the Anti-Money Laundering Council on Luy’s bank accounts which showed that Luy had P1 million and $12,767 in his Metrobank account, and $15,000 in his BPI account.

Luy confirmed that the Metrobank account contained his savings. But he said a bulk, or P800,000, were withdrawn from his bank account and transferred to that of Napoles.

Luy said Napoles forged his signature to make the fund transfer when he was detained by Napoles for three months. He was rescued by the National Bureau of Investigation in March 2013.

Meanwhile, his Metrobank dollar account contained the money remitted to him by his brother who is a seaman, Luy added.

Luy also had under his name a UCPB account, but he said he was only used as a dummy by Napoles so the account would not be traced to her.

He said the UCPB account was used as a mother account for the payroll of JLN Corp. employees.

After the hearing, Buenaventura told reporters he wanted to destroy Luy’s credibility and to show that Luy’s income does not jive with his salary from Napoles.

Luy had told the court that he earned P5,000 as Napoles’ assistant in 2002, which ballooned to P25,000 in 2009 and P45,000 in 2010 as Napoles’ entrusted finance officer who records the corporation’s daily finance transactions.

When asked by Buenaventura if Luy’s only source of income was with JLN Corp., Luy said yes.

“We wanted to show his earnings vis-a-vis his bank accounts don’t jive because of (his income) from his own transaction,” Buenaventura said.

Luy has admitted to having his own pork transaction with Senator Jinggoy Estrada’s deputy chief of staff Pauline Labayen, who fled after she was included in plunder charges over the pork scam.

Napoles, the accused mastermind of pilfering lawmakers’ Priority Development Assistance Funds (PDAF) to ghost projects for kickbacks, is serving life sentence after a court convicted her for detaining Luy for three months.

The pork barrel scam have also resulted in the detention of senators Estrada, Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. and Juan Ponce Enrile, as well as former representatives Rizalina Seachon Lanete and Edgar Valdez for plunder. AU