Senator Antonio Trillanes. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE
An audit allegedly showed that at least 30,000 listed senior citizens, who have been supposedly receiving benefits from the Makati City government, were either nonexistent or dead, Senator Antonio Trillanes IV said before the resumption of the Senate blue subcommittee hearing Thursday.
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While the list of senior citizens of Makati was about 60,000, Trillanes said records of the National Statics Office (NSO) showed that the senior citizens was only more than 30,000.
“’Yun ang nakakataka dito so ngayon itong mga pangalan na ito, lumabas sa audit 45 percent nito o mga 30,000 names ay nonexistent or mga patay na pero tumatanggap ng benepisyo. ‘Yung benepisyo ‘yung mga cash bonuses at kung anu-ano pang mga sinasbai VP Binay (Vice President Jejomar Binay) na binibigay daw nya sa mahihirap at sa mga senior citizens ‘yun pala ay para lang talagang mabulsa nya,” the senator said in an interview over Radyo Inquirer 990AM.
(This is what’s confusing here—it appears in the audit that 45 percent or 30,000 of these names are nonexistent or dead but they continue to receive benefits. These benefits which are in the form of cash bonuses which VP Binay claims to be distributed to senior citizens only end up in his pocket.)
Trillanes said the person who conducted the audit would face the Senate hearing.
This Thursday’s hearing marked the first year of the investigation of the subcommittee on corruption allegations against Binay initiated by Trillanes himself.
And the senator believes that based on the Senate hearings, they have proven that the Vice President is corrupt.
“(The Senate investigation proves) na si VP binay ay kurakot at in a large scale. Massive corruption ang pinag-uuspaan dito, na lahat ng pwedneg pagkakitaan ay pinagkakitaan,” he said.
(The Senate investigation proves that VP Binay is corrupt and in a large scale. We are talking of massive corruption here; he would take money from any means possible.)
“Kaya ito sana, nakilala ng mga kababayan natin at sana magtanda na huwag naman, huwag naman nating gawing pinuno ng bansa ito. At hindi lang ‘yan, we won’t stop there kelangan nating ipakulong…” Trillanes added.
(So hopefully, the people have known him better and hopefully won’t make the mistake of electing him as this country’s leader. We should also not stop until he is jailed.)
Binay has announced his plan to run for president in 2016, while Trillanes has also expressed his intention to run for vice president next year. Maila Ager/IDL