Palace mum on new pork barrel scam

Malacañang on Wednesday declined to comment on allegations of a new P500-million pork barrel scam that allegedly included close allies of President Aquino.

“We will leave it and we will defer to the Office of the Ombudsman all investigations of impropriety, and far from us to comment on either or in any phase of any investigation,” presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said in a press briefing.

Pointing out the Office of the Ombudsman was an independent agency, Lacierda said it would “be imprudent for us to speak of any actions being taken” by the agency on new allegations made by a group of whistle-blowers.

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said that former and incumbent lawmakers charged in the latest pork barrel case had no choice but to “face” the accusations against them.

“If you are a congressman, you wouldn’t want to get mentioned there but it has been filed so you have to face it,” Belmonte said in an interview with reporters.

He said that it was up to the lawmakers to disprove the charges, including some claims that their signatures were forged to access their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).

“At any rate, everybody will get his day in court or have an opportunity to explain themselves in the Office of the Ombudsan as it has become a public document,” he said.

Belmonte went out of his way to stress that the cases covered 2007 and 2009—or the last part of the Arroyo administration—when he was still a mayor of Quezon City.

He also said that the Department of Budget and Management had no culpability in the pork barrel scam as its role was merely “ministerial” because it only released funds that were approved in the General Appropriations Act.

He said that the agency which transferred the funds to the bogus foundations should take full responsibility for the disbursements.