Biazon pleads not guilty to pork misuse

MUNTINLUPA Rep. Rufino Biazon on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to charges of malversation and bribery for the alleged misuse of P3 million of his pork barrel funds in 2007.

Biazon, who was appointed customs commissioner in 2011 and resigned in 2013, pleaded not guilty to one count each of malversation, graft and direct bribery charges filed against him before the Sandiganbayan Seventh Division.

The Ombudsman has alleged that Biazon received P1.9 million in so-called rebate through former Energy Regulatory Commission chair Zenaida Ducut when he allocated P3 million of his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) to a bogus nongovernment organization in 2007.

The Philippine Social Foundation Inc. is one of the fake NGOs allegedly ran by Janet Lim-Napoles in a multimillion peso pork barrel scam that has implicated a number of former and incumbent lawmakers.

The Ombudsman has alleged that the Technology Resource Center concocted ghost projects using Biazon’s PDAF.