3 Manila lawmakers indicted for scam - Gulf Today

MANILA: The office of the Ombudsman on Tuesday said it found “probable cause” to file before a special court plunder and graft charges against three senior members of the Senate for their alleged involvement in a scam over the misuse of $200 million allocated to lawmakers.

Lawyer Asryman Rafanan, the spokesman, told a media briefing that Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales has ordered the filing of the charges before the Sandiganbayan against former Senate president Juan Ponce Enrile, former Senate president pro tempore Jinggoy Estrada and Senator Ramon Revilla Junior.

Also to be indicted, Rafanan said, was detained businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles, tagged as the “brains” in the scam involving the $200 million allocated to lawmakers to help improve the lives of millions of poor Filipinos in the countryside. But instead, Rafanan said Ombudsman investigators found a “paper trail” establishing that the three lawmakers and Napoles pocketed the funds known as “pork barrel” through fake non-government organisations (NGOs) set up by Napoles.

Congress has since renamed the allocation to Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) apparently to deodorise the stench it created as one of the major sources of corruption among lawmakers.

Rafanan, however, emphasised the filing of the charges against the three senators constituted the first batch of the plunder and criminal charges filed by the Department of Justice against incumbent and former members of the Senate and the House of Representatives in connection with the scam that has drawn nationwide anger and indignation.

Rafanan assured the Ombudsman would soon rule on the separate plunder charges filed against at least 38 congressmen as well as government officials and Napoles.

Because plunder is non-bailable, legal experts pointed out the Sandiganbayan could order the arrest of the three senators and Napoles once the Ombudsman would file the charges. However, Rafanan clarified such move would still depend on whether the senators would ask the Ombudsman to reconsider its decision to file the complaints before the Sandiganbayan.

The announcement of the Ombudsman came less than two hours after the powerful Senate Blue Ribbon Committee also released a separate report recommending the filing of plunder charges against Enrile, Estrada and Revilla.

In a separate media briefing, Senator Teofisto Guingona, the chairman, disclosed that after seven months of public hearings, the committee found a “systematic scheme and collusion among lawmakers, government officials and Napoles to steal public funds.”

According to Guingona, the committee also recommended the filing of disbarment proceedings against Enrile and his former chief of staff Jessica Reyes, both lawyers, in connection with the scam.

Enrile served as the martial law administrator of the Philippines late strongman Ferdinand Marcos as the defence minister.

Significantly, Jinggoy Estrada is the son of former president and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada, the country’s first sitting president to be convicted of plunder by the Sandiganbayan for unexplained wealth.

But even before Estrada could spend one day in jail of the life imprisonment imposed on him by the Sandiganbayan, his successor then president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo granted him full executive clemency, which restored all his constitutional rights including the right to vote.

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