Names of three members of President Aquino’s Liberal Party (LP) appeared in the digital files of pork barrel scam primary whistleblower Benhur Luy, GMA News “24 Oras” reported on Thursday.
According to a “24 Oras” report, included in Luy’s digital files were draft letters bearing the names of Senate President Franklin Drilon, Senator Ralph Recto and former Senator Francis “Kiko”Pangilinan,
The unsigned drafts reportedly had Drilon, Recto and Pangilinan each asking P10-million worth of financial assistance from the Department of Agriculture for projects for farmers in the countryside.
Drilon and Recto had earlier denied involvement in the pork barrel scam.
Pangilinan, who now serves as the Presidential Assistant on Food Security and Agricultural Modernization, said in a text message sent to GMA News: “Please, media should not waste its time with baseless and unfounded allegations.”
Under the scheme ran by alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim Napoles, lawmakers receive millions of pesos in kickbacks in exchange for endorsing her dubious non-government organizations as recipients of priority development assistance fund allocations to be released by government agencies.
Aside from Drilon, Recto and Pangilinan names of other incumbent and former senators also appeared in Luy’s digital files.
Among them are Senators Juan Ponce-Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada, Ramong “Bong” Revilla Jr., Alan Peter Cayetano and Lito Lapid as well as former Senators Loi Ejercito-Estrada, Tessie Aquino-Oreta, Ramon Revilla Sr. and the late Robert Barbers.
Enrile, Estrada and Revilla are already facing plunder charges in connection with their involvement in the scam.
Lawmakers implicated in the scam have repeatedly denied any involvement in the fraud.
Luy’s digital files, contained in two discs, were turned over by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to the Senate on Wednesday and made available to media.
Included in the discs were over 50 deleted files from Luy’s hard drive, retrieved by the NBI.
In a phone patch interview, Luy’s lawyer Raji Mendoza said the deletion of some files in Luy’s hard drive shouldn’t be taken against the credibility of his client.
“Wala naman sigurong tao na gumagamit ng computer na hindi nagde-delete. In fact, this will support his credibility. Mas believable na ito na mayroong normal occurences na nagde-delete ka ng files,” Mendoza said.
But the legal counsel of businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged brains behind the pork scam, thinks otherwise.
“We really have to study kung totoo ba yan (Luy’s files)…. Kasi somewhere along the way, baka nagkaroon ng subtitution, tampering, etc.,” said Napoles’ lawyer Stephen David said in a separate interview.
David said the presence of digital files was questionable since Napoles, who used to be the boss of Luy in JLN Corp., rarely or never kept digital copies of documents pertaining to her transactions with lawmakers and government officials in connection with the pork scam.
