Another Manila official turns state witness in scam - Gulf Today

MANILA: A senior member of the cabinet on Friday disclosed that another ranking official has turned state witness in the misuse of the $200 million fund for lawmakers who allegedly pocketed their allocations instead of helping improve the lives of millions poor Filipinos especially in the countryside.

Secretary Leila de Lima of the Department of Justice said she approved as “provisionary state witness” Dennis Cunanan, the former head of the government-run Technology Resource Centre (TRC), pending the final go-signal from the office of the Ombudsman.

“This was the first time that the head of a government agency has come forward to belie statements of the three senators they had nothing to do with the scam,” De Lima told a televised media briefing.

De Lima was referring to former Senate president Juan Ponce Enrile, former Senate president pro tempore Jinggoy Estrada and Senator Ramon Revilla who are facing separate plunder complaints along with 38 others before Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, a retired Supreme Court justice and the country’s chief graft-buster.

According to De Lima, Cunanan’s testimony would strengthen the government case against incumbent and former lawmakers linked to the scandal on the alleged misuse of their “pork barrel” allocations that has drawn nationwide anger and indignation.

Cunanan has submitted a 36-page sworn statement detailing the scam involving the three senators who allegedly even “admonished” him to hasten the implementation of their projects, De Lima said.

In particular, she added that Jinggoy Estrada and Revilla coursed their allocations to finance livelihood projects to the TRC which were to be implemented by bogus non-government organisations (NGOs) they had personally chosen.

Government prosecutors said the fake NGOs were set up by detained businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles, tagged as the alleged scam “mastermind.”

Cunanan’s testimony came less than two weeks after socialite Ruby Tuason, the former social secretary of then president and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada, returned to the Philippines from the US to also volunteer as a state witness in the scam.

Among others, Tuason testified that as the “bagwoman” of Napoles, she delivered huge amounts of cash contained in boxes to the Senate office of Jinggoy, the son of Estrada who was the first sitting Philippine president to be convicted of plunder.

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