About 100 former lawmakers and government officials have been charged with plunder and graft allegedly for diverting their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), or pork barrel, to ghost projects and fake foundations.
The P10-billion scandal broke out in July 2013.
In September, charges were filed first against 38 people, including businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, then Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr., former Representatives Rizalina Seachon-Lanete, Edgar Valdez, Rodolfo Plaza, Samuel Dangwa and Constantino Jaraula, senior staff of the senators and congressmen, department heads and other lesser government officials.
A second batch of charges later was brought in November last year against 34 individuals, including then Customs Commissioner Rozzano Rufino Biazon and Energy Regulatory Commission Chair Zenaida Cruz-Ducut, in the Office of the Ombudsman.
Also named in the charge sheet were several former congressmen—Salacnib Baterina, Ilocos Sur province; Arrel Olaño, Davao del Sur province; Arthur Pingoy Jr., South Cotabato province; Rodolfo Valencia, Oriental Mindoro province; and Douglas Cagas and his son Marc Douglas IV, both from Davao del Sur province—and auditors and former officials of National Agribusiness Corp., Technology Resource Center and presidents of two Napoles nongovernment organizations.
In August 2015, the National Bureau of Investigation released a third group accused of taking kickbacks in the pork barrel scam, including Sen. Gregorio Honasan II, Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, former Technical Education Skills and Development Authority Director General and now Sen. Joel Villanueva, La Union Rep. Victor Ortega, Manila Rep. Amado Bagatsing, former Pangasinan Rep. Conrad Estrella III, former Abono Rep. Robert Raymund Estrella, former La Union Rep. Manuel Ortega, former Zamboanga Rep. Isidoro Real Jr. and 31 others. —INQUIRER RESEARCH
Source: Inquirer Archives