Return pork, bishop urges lawmakers

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—Archbishop Paciano Aniceto on Sunday called on legislators who funneled their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) to dubious nongovernment organizations of detained businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles and other people behind the NGOs and questionable projects to return the money to the national treasury.

Aniceto, 71, aired the demand during his homily at the 57th anniversary of the canonical coronation of the Virgen de Los Remedios and Sto. Cristo del Perdon, patrons of Pampanga, here on Sunday.

An angry Aniceto said lawmakers who diverted their PDAF, the official name of the pork barrel, to their pockets and their cohorts should follow the humility of Catholic bishops dragged into the so-called Pajero scandal.

“Several of them faced the Senate investigation. They returned the vehicles,” Aniceto told the crowd of around 50,000 devotees.

In 2011, the Commission on Audit (COA) confirmed that the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) bought five vehicles worth P6.94 million that were “granted to Catholic Church archdioceses.”—Tonette Orejas