Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago attends the Blue Ribbon Committee hearing of the P10 billion Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scam Thursday, November 7. Santiago reminded Napoles that she cannot just invoke her right against self-incrimination
MANILA, May 14 (Mabuhay) – Former Senator Panfilo Lacson said a lifestyle check is in order against Senator Miriam Santiago now that the Benhur Luy list is out.
Santiago earlier called for the release of the Luy list amid the disclosure of the Janet Napoles list that Lacson is holding.
On the Napoles list, Santiago’s name was not included. Her name is on Luy’s list, on the other hand.
“Barely one day before Luy’s list came out, she was saying that the Luy’s list was more credible. Understandably, crooks often forget petty transactions since they would likely use the loot on less significant expenditures. They only remember the big ones that enter their fat bank accounts,” Lacson said in a statement.
He said that since Luy’s list is now out, “the Senate’s self-proclaimed anti-pork ‘crusader’ must be quaking in her shoes while cracking her head thinking of some crazy pick-up lines to divert the issue from her P2.5M rebate aka kickback from her P10M allocation through a Napoles NGO.”
Both Santiago and Lacson have been trading barbs through the media.
Santiago said Lacson is the “attack dog” of the senators earlier implicated in the pork scam: Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada, and Bong Revilla.
Miriam: I will make my detractor pay
In a separate statement, Santiago denounced as false the allegations in the Luy list. She believes her identity was stolen and used in the allegedly forged pork barrel documents that both Napoles and Luy are using.
“I thought that if the Luy list included documents, they would first be authenticated, before publication. Silly me,” she said.
She noted the Luy list could not have been authenticated. “The Napoles Gang merely forged certain public documents and used certain names like mine, to pad their in-house records.”
She said she will confront both Luy and Napoles when they appear in the Senate.
After claiming that the Luy list was more credible, Santiago made a 180-degree turn.
“The Luy list has no proof of the attestation of any public document, and no proof of the authenticity of any private document. Thus, the Luy list constitutes no proof at all against me and others like me. The Luy list is nothing but mudslinging. How sad for our country that such villainy can come to pass,” she said.
She said she will make her detractor pay.
“Someone has made money by using my name, and I will make that person pay, big time. Presumably, there are other people who, like me, are innocent, but whose names and identities have been stolen,” she said.
Lacson’s name was not mentioned in her statement, but Santiago made a mouthful against her rival.
“If corruption is this bad, maybe I should run for president, on the same anti-corruption platform from which I have fulminated all these years. And maybe I should deliver a privilege speech against you-know-who. I understand that his official boss is vexed, because of the grandiloquent ambitions of this rogue in uniform,” she said. (MNS)