Enrile lawyers for Binay in Senate hearing

Vice President Jejomar Binay and Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

SENATE Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile ended up Tuesday acting as a lawyer for Vice President Jejomar Binay on the last of the 25 hearings of the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee on corruption allegations against Binay. The hearings started in August 2014.

Attending for the first time the subcommittee hearing, Enrile raised some questions on the testimonies that witnesses had made to show Binay’s alleged involvement in certain anomalies when he was Makati mayor.

But a witness and a senator said Enrile did not make much hay on his questioning.

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV said he thought Enrile’s queries were “generally fair and objective” and a “healthy exercise of the democratic process” as he welcomed the presence of the latter since he was a representative of the opposition.

“It’s up to the people to make a prejudgment like that. But from what I have seen, it was pretty tame (questioning) if we are talking about the standard (of questioning) of Senator Enrile. So I did not see anything beyond the normal,” Trillanes told reporters when asked whether he agreed with the observation that Enrile was lawyering for Binay at the hearing.

Enrile, a member of the opposition coalition that included Binay, tried to poke holes in the testimony of lawyer Renato Bondal and former Makati City Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado, both of whom had accused Binay of amassing illegal wealth from city projects and programs and other schemes.

Misleading

The Senate minority leader said the figures presented by Bondal on Binay’s statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs) were “misleading” after the latter said that Binay’s net worth grew by 2,300 percent from P2 million in 1986 to P60.25 million in 2014.

Enrile asked Bondal whether the value of Binay’s properties was at cost or at fair market value, and whether he took into consideration the exchange rate of the peso against the dollar at that time since the peso depreciated through time.

Bondal replied he was merely quoting the figures stated in the SALNs of the Vice President.

The subcommittee chair, Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, reminded Enrile that the SALN forms for senators had asked about the value of their properties at acquisition cost.

“Some report it at market value,” Enrile replied.

Enrile also questioned Bondal on the latter’s assertion on the alleged Binay syndicate through his links with certain people, including his missing aides, Gerry Limlingan and Ebeng Baloloy. He particularly questioned the basis for linking Binay with Limlingan via the JC Foundation.

Trillanes came in to say that the hearings had established “the professional and personal relationship between Limlingan, Baloloy and the others.”

“(Mercado) attested and in fact witnessed that Limlingan and Baloloy functioned as a dummy because he himself was a dummy of the Vice President,” Trillanes said.

‘Ratio of interest’

Enrile said he did not dispute that assertion but underscored the need to find out the “ratio of interest” of those involved in the JC foundation.

Mercado butted in, saying that the foundation was a nonstock and nonprofit organization where Limlingan had “practiced connecting companies under him.”

Enrile said Mercado’s point would be “meaningless” in court because “you have to trace the flow of wealth—where it came from.”

Mercado insisted that no money in the foundation went to Limlingan as he was just giving proof that the latter was the “bagman” of Binay.

“That is your word. But you are presenting a concrete evidence of relationship. You have to prove each step of the relationship, ” said the Senate minority leader.

Bondal said linking the Anti-Money Laundering Council’s list of the alleged bank accounts of Binay and his alleged dummies to certain personalities would show “a general picture of how the syndicate works.”