Pork Barrel Scam TRC DIRECTOR CUNANAN PINS DOWN SENATORS ENRILE, REVILLA, ESTRADA

By TJ Burgonia

Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines—Even Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile endorsed the recipient of his own pork barrel in the “grand conspiracy” to convert government funds into kickbacks, a government executive said on Thursday.

Testifying before the Senate blue ribbon committee, Dennis Cunanan said Enrile and Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr. submitted similarly worded project proposals to the Technology Resource Center (TRC) to course their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allocations to preselected nongovernment organizations (NGOs).

Cunanan, TRC’s director general who is on leave, said Estrada and Revilla “pressured” him on the phone into releasing their PDAF allocations to NGOs controlled by Janet Lim-Napoles, the detained businesswoman who allegedly engineered the P10-billion pork barrel scam.

Now a provisional state witness, Cunanan sought to distance himself from the transactions in the TRC, a government corporation that acted as a conduit for the release of the PDAF to NGOs.

“They copied from each other’s project proposal,” Cunanan told the committee during its 10th hearing on the PDAF scandal.

Citing his own research, Cunanan said that even Enrile identified the NGO-recipient of his PDAF, in a reversal of the process that it was usually the TRC that informed legislators about the availability of their PDAF.

“He wrote to this implementing agency and said that funds would be soon available. Later on, his staff followed up with a letter this time identifying the NGO,” he said under questioning by Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago.

Santiago remarked: “Wow. I’m very interested in what you have to say.”

Cunanan said the transaction involving Enrile’s PDAF pushed through, without going into specifics.

It was the first time Cunanan identified Enrile as the direct endorser of a recipient NGO.

20 questions from Revilla

The three senators, who have denied any wrongdoing, skipped the hearing as in the past, but Revilla sent a list of more than 20 questions for Cunanan through the committee chair, Sen. Teofisto Guingona III.

In rush of the three senators to have their fund released, Cunanan said the lawmakers’ representatives would show up with the endorsement letter, even before the fund was transferred to the TRC.

“You’re very detailed. I congratulate you. I should have let you stayed in UP,” commented Santiago, an alumna of the University of the Philippines.

Cunanan, who was TRC deputy director general when the senators dealt with agency from 2007 to 2009, admitted he often talked with Enrile’s chief of staff, Jessica Lucila “Gigi” Reyes.

The 42-year-old Cunanan, who wore rimmed glasses and was clad in a dark blue polo shirt, said he was endorsed to Reyes, who he believed was the alter-ego of the senator.

And while he dealt mostly with Reyes, Cunanan said it was hard to believe that Enrile didn’t know about the transactions.

Cunanan also confirmed that Estrada and Revilla submitted project proposals that had the same format and language, even misspellings.

‘Let it go’

Egged on by Santiago, he said that Enrile’s camp forwarded project proposals that were similar to those of his two colleagues.

“Yes,” he said when asked if this was part of “a grand conspiracy to plunder public funds” as he had stated in his affidavit, but stopped short of identifying the mastermind. “That’s very difficult to say.”

“Let it go,” Santiago coaxed him, using words from a song in the movie “Frozen,” but to no avail.

In his affidavit, Cunanan said the project proposals of Estrada and Revilla appeared to have been prepared by one person or group.

He recalled an instance when Benhur Luy, who visited his TRC office to lobby the projects, called the offices of Estrada and Revilla, and handed him the phone so he could talk with their staff, and eventually, the senators.

Luy, erstwhile chief aide of Napoles, confirmed that he called Estrada’s staff Pauline Labayen and Revilla’s staff Richard Cambe before handing the phone to Cunanan.

“I was even doubting if he can really call, but he did,” Cunanan said of Luy. “I think he first talked with Labayen. When I got the phone, Labayen told me: ‘Director, the senator will talk to you.’”

“Of course, I was shocked when it was passed to me. The senator asked, ‘What seems to be the problem? Why don’t you complete it because it’s being awaited in the ground?’ I told him: ‘Senator, it’s still being processed. It’s not that easy.’ We ended there,” he added.

He didn’t doubt that it was Estrada on the other line because he was familiar with the senator’s voice on TV and in the action films he appeared in.

‘Kap is my idol’

Cunanan said he next talked with Cambe, who asked if there was a way that the release of the fund could be fast-tracked.

“I said it’s now being processed. Then I was put on hold for a while, and Cambe passed the phone to the senator. He asked ‘What’s taking you too long? That’s my PDAF. The NGO is authorized, maybe you could speed it up,’” he added, recalling his conversation with Revilla.

Cunanan said he could not recall the exact conversations, but admitted: “I don’t get to talk to senators every day.”

He said that was the first time he spoke with Estrada and the second time with Revilla.

“I also watch TV. ‘Idol ko si Kap,’” he later said, referring to Revilla’s former TV show, to prove that he was familiar with the senator’s voice.

Santiago later told reporters that Cunanan’s testimony established the involvement of the three senators in the racket.

“What’s important is there’s conspiracy as seen in the documents. In all three offices of the senators, the format, phraseology was exactly the same. It looks like they just copied from each other. They had a template and agreed to follow a certain modus operandi as evidenced by the uniform use of supporting documents,” Santiago said.

(Photo caption: SPOTLIGHT SHIFTS Dennis Cunanan, director general on-leave of the Technology Resource Center, testifies during the Senate blue ribbon committee hearing on the pork barrel scam while principal witness Benhur Luy is all ears. Photo by RAFFY LERMA, PDI)