Jinggoy’s millions

A PHILIPPINE anti-graft court has recently dismissed for lack of merit a petition by Sen. Jinggoy Estrada to prevent the garnishment of his properties in relation to a P184-million plunder charge filed against him by the Ombudsman, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.

PHOTO from Jinggoy Estrada Facebook page

PHOTO from Jinggoy Estrada Facebook page

The senator is facing plunder charges along with Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Bong Revilla and Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged mastermind in the P10-billion pork barrel scam.

The Inquirer also reported that in upholding its Feb. 17 order granting the Ombudsman’s petition for a writ of preliminary attachment, the Sandiganbayan said the arguments raised by Estrada in his motion for reconsideration were “unmeritorious.” A writ of attachment or garnishment is similar to a freeze order issued by the courts while a trial is going on.

Click on the photo to read the full report on the Inquirer webpage.

PHOTO FROM Jinggoy Estrada Facebook page | Photo by Albert Calvelo

PHOTO FROM Jinggoy Estrada Facebook page | Photo by Albert Calvelo

Senator Jinggoy E. Estrada, son of former president Joseph Estrada by first wife and former senator Dr. Luisa ‘Loi’ Ejercito Estrada, has straddled the worlds of politics and show business all his life. Over the last two decades, Jinggoy has starred in several films and at the same, been elected mayor of his father’s bailiwick of San Juan City, and later, as senator. Jinggoy is serving his second six-year term in the Senate until May 2016.

How much is he worth?

Click on the photo below to know Jinggoy’s net worth on our MoneyPolitics site.

PHOTO FROM Jinggoy Estrada Facebook page

PHOTO FROM Jinggoy Estrada Facebook page

 

 

Holy Week in prison for Enrile, Estrada, Revilla?

The PDAF kings

The PDAF kings

Now that the Ombudsman has approved the resolution to file plunder charges against those involved in the malversation of the Priority Development Assistance Fund, it looks like Senators Juan Ponce-Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla would be observing their Holy Week in jail.

It is reported that Revilla and his family are in Holy Land to seek for “divine intervention.” Let’s see if his wish would be granted.

The accused will be given time to submit a motion for reconsideration, after which the Ombudsman will file the Information with the Sandiganbayan. The graft court will determine whether there’s a basis for the case to proceed.

The Sandiganbayan has 10 days after receipt of the Information to issue a warrant of arrest.

In a briefing, Ombudsman Spokesperson Asryman Rafanan they “found probable cause to indict Juan Ponce Enrile, Ramon Bong Revilla Jr., Jinggoy Estrada, as well as Janet Lim Napoles, and a number of government employees and non-government organizations offices with plunder punishable under RA 7080 as amended and violation of section 3E of Republic Act 3019 or the anti-graft and corrupt practices act in connection to the pork scam.”

On the charges for Plunder, Rafanan said “the Joint Resolutions concluded that the three Senators took undue advantage of their official position to illegally divert , in connivance with certain respondents, their respective PDAF allocations to the Napoles NGOs, in exchange for kickbacks/commission amounting to more than P172 million ,P242million ndP183 million in the case of Senators Enrile, Revilla and Estrada, respectively, with the PDAF funded projects turning out to be “ghost” projects, under a modus operandi of a combination and series of overt criminal acts repeatedly taking place over a number of years.”

The crime of Plunder under RA 7080 is punishable by reclusion perpetua (to death), and forfeiture of the ill-gotten wealth in favor of the government.

In the Ombudsman resolutions, it showed that Revilla got the largest kickback in the amount of P224, 512,00 out of the P517,000,000 PDAF that was released to him.

Estrada was the second topnotcher with P183,793,750 kickbacks from his P480,000,650 pork barrel.

Ombudsman’s investigations showed that P172, 834,500 out of the P345, 000,000 PDAF released to Enrile went to kickbacks and commissions.

On the charges for violations of Section 3(e) of R.A. 3019, the Joint Resolutions uniformly found that the sets of respondents conspired in causing undue injury to the government in the amounts of P345 million, P517 million and P278 million from the PDAF of Senators Enrile, Revilla and Estrada, respectively, by receiving, in evident bad faith, kickbacks or portions of the diverted amount, and by being manifestly partial in the selection of the Napoles NGOs and the conduit Implementing Agencies (IAs), which resulted in unwarranted benefit, preference or advantage to the Napoles NGOs which were chosen without the benefit of public bidding and which supposed turned out to be “ghost” projects.

Estrada and Revilla issued statements denying the accusations adding that they were not surprised by the Ombudsman’s decision. Enrile, as of presstime, has not issued a reaction.

Enrile’s chief of staff of Enrile, Gigi Reyes, Estrada’s Pauline Labayen, and Revilla’s Richard Cambe were included among the respondents.

Included also are Ruby Tuason, former social secretary of President Estrada who acted as broker in the Malampaya and PDAF scams and Dennis Cunanan, director-general (on leave) of the Technology Resource Center , which was used as conduit for the release of PDAF to ghost non=government organizations and projects.
Tuason and Cunanan have applied to be state witnesses.

The number of the respondents shows how extensive the scam’s network. The cases against the three senators and their cohorts in the PDAF scam demonstrate that the law does not distinguish the offenders social and political status.

These are just the first batch of charges. More to come.

Quarrel among thieves

Sama-sama na tayo lahat. Thanks to Inquirer for photo.

Sama-sama na tayo lahat. Thanks to Inquirer for photo.

The speech of Sen. Jinggoy Estrada may not be as explosive as expected but the public is benefitting from it because we are getting a bigger and more realistic picture of how rotten the system is, and how “tuwid na daan” is being drawn with crooked lines.

Estrada is one of three senators (the two others are Senators Ramon “Bong” Revilla and Juan Ponce-Enrile) charged with plunder in connection with the anomalous use of their PDAF as allegedly operated by Janet Lim Napoles.

Estrada, in his 90 minute speech, never denied his involvement with Napoles’ scam. His complaint was, why only the three of us?

It is distressing because what we are seeing is a quarrel among thieves. But we console ourselves with the wise words of old folks that “When cattle rustlers quarrel, the farmer gets back his cow.”

Are we going to get back our cow? That all depends on the public’s vigilance.

We are most interested with the disclosure of Estrada that after the Senate overwhelmingly for the conviction of then Supreme Court Justice Renato Corona, a priority crusade of President Aquino to reform the justice system in fulfillment of his campaign promise to eliminate corruption in government, those who voted to convict were given P50 million each.

Estrada related instances when the Priority Development Assistance Program was used as “carrot” by Malacañang under Aquino, just like what Gloria Arroyo did, whenever they want something from members of Congress like the ouster of then Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez (she was eventually persuaded to resign in exchange for not filing charges against her and for her to get her full retirement benefits); the Sin Tax bill, and the Reproductive Health bill.

Estrada said:” Here now, Mr. President, as our people must know, are some ugly facts and information on the PDAF that our people must know and which i challenge anyone to deny.”

His most important disclosure: “Hindi na tuloy tuloy nakapagtataka ng kumalat ang balita na ang mga kongresista at mga senador ay inalok din ng PDAF para siguraduhin ang impeachment at conviction ng dating Punong Hukom ng Korte Suprema.

“Hahayaan ko na ang taong bayan ang gumawa ng konklusyon kung ito ay totoo o hindi, pero ito ang aking maidadagdag sa kwento — after the conviction of the Former Chief Justice, those who voted to convict were allotted an additional 50 million pesos as provided in a private and confidential letter memorandum of the then chair of the senate finance committee. Saan galing ang pinamigay na pondo? I am sure alam ni Secretary Abad ang sagot sa tanong na ito. At sigurado din ako na hindi unilateral decision ni senate president drilon ang pamimigay ng 50 million pesos kada senador.”

Here are the names of the 20 senators who for the conviction of Corona: Edgardo Angara; Alan Peter Cayetano; Pia Cayetano; Franklin Drilon; Francis Escudero;

Jinggoy Estrada; Teofisto Guingona III; Gregorio Honasan; Panfilo Lacson; Lito Lapid;

Loren Legarda; Sergio Osmeña III; Francis Pangilinan; Aquilino ‘Koko’ Pimentel III; Ralph Recto;

Ramon Revilla Jr.;Vicente Sotto III; Antonio Trillanes IV; Manuel Villar; and Juan Ponce Enrile Jr.

The three who voted for the acquittal of Corona were Joker Arroyo;Miriam Defensor-Santiago; and Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

P50 million times 20 is P1 billion. We believe that’s our money. We also would like to know how it ended up in the hands of senators and how it was spent.

Reactions of senators and Malacañang to the P50 million revelation of Estrada:

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad:Illogical.Absolutely, completely not true. As far as I’m concerned, we did not bribe the lawmakers.

Former Sen. Panfilo Lacson: I confirm the P50-million “incentive” that was allegedly given to senators who voted to convict then Chief Justice Renato Corona. Drilon told us about it in a caucus.

Senate President Franklin Drilon: The P50 million given after the Corona trial was not a bribe. It was PDAF withheld during the four-month trial.

Sen. TG Guingona: I got additional P50 million but it was not connected to Corona conviction.

Sen.Pia Cayetano: I don’t know anything about it.

Sen. Alan Cayetano: I didn’t get paid for voting to convict Corona.

Communications Secretary Ricky Carandang: I do not know exactly what senator Lacson was referring to…there are many things coming out now. Some of them may be true. Some of them may not be true.

NBI files plunder raps vs Enrile, Revilla, Estrada, Napoles

By VERA Files

THE National Bureau of Investigation filed on Monday afternoon plunder and malversation of public funds charges against Senators Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., Jinggoy Estrada and Juan Ponce Enrile, and businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles before the Office of the Ombudsman in connection with the misuse of the Priority Development Assistance Fund, more commonly known as “pork barrel.”

Similar charges were filed against former Masbate Rep. and now Gov. Rizalina Lanete and former APEC party-list Rep. Edgar Valdez.

No fireworks seen with filing of raps vs. lawmakers

By DANA BATNAG, VERA Files

IT WILL be a much-anticipated media event, but the filing of complaints against senators and congressmen allegedly involved in the pork barrel scam is unlikely to result in fireworks or other earthshaking political upheavals.

That’s because filing a complaint with the Ombudsman is just the start of a long process—one that may take years—to make public officials accountable for their misdeeds

Click here (VERA Files) for the rest of the commentary.

The five public officials were found to have each accumulated more than P50 million, the threshold amount for plunder, through misappropriation, misuse and conversion of their PDAF allocations and acceptance of kickbacks from transactions made with Napoles and her NGOs for the PDAF-supported projects, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima told a press briefing.

Charged with similar or lesser offenses–malversation, direct bribery and/or other graft and corrupt practices–were 32 other people identified by whistleblowers, all former staff of Napoles who have personal knowledge and documents of the abuse of the PDAF.

Click here (VERA Files) for the rest of the story.