Fire DA chief Alcala, lawmaker urges Aquino

Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—A lawmaker on Tuesday urged President Benigno Aquino III to replace Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala amid allegations that the Department of Agriculture served as a conduit for funnelling the pork barrel funds of lawmakers into dummy organizations put up by Janet Lim-Napoles.

Leyte’s first district representative Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, head of the House independent bloc, said Alcala should vacate his post after he was linked to the P10-billion pork barrel scam, allegedly masterminded by Napoles.

Should the DA chief refuses to resign, Aquino must consider ousting Alcala as the Agriculture head, Romualdez said.

Alcala reportedly approved Napoles’ ghost projects for farmers under bogus nongovernment organizations (NGOs), where the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) of her lawmaker cohorts had been siphoned off.

Former employees of JLN Corporation, Napoles’ company, said that the implementing agency, which was DA, got percentage in every agricultural project of the 49-year-old businesswoman.

Napoles, Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., and Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada among others are now facing plunder raps.

He said that there were more competent people who can replace Alcala like Former Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, who was the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Foods in 2011.

The Leyte representative said that Pangilinan had a “good record as a legislator.”

Estrada, in his privilege speech last week, implicated Pangilinan as one of the administration allies in the Senate who engaged in P1.2 billion questionable transactions with local government units.

But actress Sharon Cuneta, wife of Pangilinan, defended his husband through her Twitter saying: “If anyone reading this can prove to me that my husband has stolen any amount from his PDAF in his 12 years as senator, I will give you P10 million in cash and I will leave my husband. That is how confident I am.”

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