MANILA, Philippines - Most of the deals were in cold cash and no receipts were given.
And two senators initially hesitated to deal with businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, but were persuaded by a promise of a 40 percent kickback, with five percent tax withheld.
This was the gist of the statement of Ruby Tuason, former social secretary of deposed President and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada, who returned to the country yesterday, delivering what Justice Secretary Leila de Lima called a “slam dunk of evidence” linking Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Jinggoy Estrada to the multibillion-peso pork barrel scam.
“I want to clear my conscience and live in peace,” Tuason told reporters in an ambush interview at the Department of Justice (DOJ), which approved her request to be placed under the Witness Protection Program (WPP).
She later proceeded to the Office of the Ombudsman to submit her statement.
Tuason confessed in her 15-page affidavit to being the “agent” since 2004 for the two senators in the scam allegedly masterminded by Janet Lim-Napoles.
Told of the development, President Aquino said it would help provide closure to a dark episode in the country’s struggle against corruption and oppression.
“Madam Ombudsman, we are pleased to present to you, Mrs. Ruby Chan Tuason, who has applied for and was granted coverage under the WPP and is now turning state witness in the Napoles-related scam cases that are now before this honorable body,” De Lima told Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales.
Also with Tuason was lawyer Dennis Manalo.
At first, Tuason said Sen. Estrada was hesitant to deal with Napoles. But when the latter offered to give 40 percent in kickback less five-percent withholding tax, the lawmaker eventually agreed to channel his pork allocation – officially called Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) – to Napoles’ bogus non-government organizations.
Tuason said she made the same offer to Enrile’s chief-of-staff, lawyer Jessica “Gigi” Reyes.
“At first, Attorney Gigi Reyes refused to see Janet Napoles but agreed to course the release of Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile’s PDAF following the same arrangement that Janet Napoles made to Sen. Jinggoy Estrada,” Tuason said in her affidavit executed last Tuesday at the consular office in San Francisco, California.
Tuason recalled there were instances when she herself would deliver the shares of the senators.
She said she would enter the Senate building in Pasay City through the basement to personally deliver the kickbacks to Estrada.
Tuason also revealed that the deal with Enrile was done through Reyes. She said she would meet Enrile’s trusted aide in several restaurants in Makati and Taguig.
At one time, Enrile arrived right after their meeting, Tuason said.
Tuason said she couldn’t recall the exact amounts involved in Napoles’ transactions with the senators but said they could be lower than the figures mentioned by whistle-blower Benhur Luy in his affidavit.
The transactions had no receipts and involved cold cash in many instances, she said.
Tuason also admitted receiving referral fee of 1.5 percent but did not say exactly how much that amounted to.
De Lima said Tuason promised “to return certain amount, which was her share for referring projects to the lawmakers that she implicated in the scam.”
Tuason arrived in Manila at around 3:40 a.m. yesterday on PAL flight PR 105 from San Francisco. Agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) fetched her from the NAIA Terminal 2.
Bureau of Immigration records showed that she left the country on Aug. 26, just two days before Napoles surrendered.
A source said she declined to put on bullet-proof vest on her arrival.
“She was calm, very much like a rich traveler,” the source said.
De Lima revealed that Tuason sent surrender feelers to the DOJ early last month.
NBI agents first met her in San Francisco in the second week of January for preliminary talks.
Last Monday, the same team returned to the US to fetch her. She executed her affidavit before Consul General Jaime Ramon Ascalon and the next day booked her flight home.
Provisional
After assessing her testimony, the DOJ approved her application to turn state witness and placed her under WPP custody.
“This offer of testimony is very significant. This is more than corroborative because she is able to provide whatever was missing in the earlier testimonies of the whistle-blowers,” De Lima explained.
But the DOJ chief clarified that Tuason’s coverage under WPP would be “provisional” as the Office of the Ombudsman has yet to decide on her motion to be granted immunity from suit.
“Based on our evaluation, she is qualified to be state witness. But the final say lies with the Ombudsman after its own independent evaluation of the testimony. If the Ombudsman agrees with our evaluation, then she will be given full WPP coverage,” she added.
Tuason was among the legislative chiefs-of-staff named in the plunder, graft, malversation of public funds and direct bribery charges filed with the Ombudsman in September last year in connection with the PDAF scam.
“I’d like to emphasize that your application for being an immune witness and eventually hopefully a state witness will be conditional. Because we have to see to it that you do not hedge on your promise to testify for the prosecution,” Morales told Tuason.
Acknowledging Manalo’s representing Tuason, Morales told him “now we’re on the same side” after pointing out his being one of the defense counsels in the impeachment trial of former chief justice Renato Corona.
The lawyer, in reply, assured the Ombudsman of his client’s commitment to WPP requirements.
“She understands as well all the consequences attached thereto if she fails to do so (testify for the government),” Manalo added before Tuason was finally allowed to take an oath and swear to the authenticity and truthfulness of her affidavit.
“The truth will set you free, as they say. So I decided to tell the truth so I don’t have to fear anyone. I don’t have to hide,” Tuason told reporters while being escorted out of the Office of the Ombudsman to a safehouse.
“It was a very big sacrifice on my part because these are close friends of mine. It really pains me that I have to do this,” she added.
Manalo, in a separate interview, said Tuason’s affidavit contains details – including more names – that cannot be revealed yet pending the completion of a preliminary investigation being conducted by the Office of the Ombudsman.
“Insofar as the DOJ is concerned, they are satisfied. Mrs. Chan-Tuason’s statement corroborates the evidence that they have for the prosecution of this case,” he said.
“We will let Ombudsman make its own assessment, we don’t want to destroy the reputation of anyone,” he said.
“It took a repeated process of reflection, recollection, discernment on her part and she just realized that her only liberation from her anxiety, fear as well as a bothered conscience is the disclosure of the truth,” he said, referring to the circumstances that made her decide to turn state witness.
“It may not necessarily dovetail on every single point or fact but only on the substantial portions of the evidence. Insofar as the essential or material personalities are concerned, they are corroborated,” he said when asked if Tuason’s accounts in her affidavit were consistent with those of Luy’s.
“She mentioned everything that she knows and that includes the names of the people she transacted with. Yes, there will be other names,” he added.
“The DOJ is satisfied with her testimony and that is why she was endorsed personally by the secretary of the DOJ to the Ombudsman,” he said. “To me, the presence of these two heads of delicate agencies of our government means a lot. It means that they give full value to the process as well as to the statement that has been released today,” he added.
Senate invitation
Senators wasted no time in inviting Tuason to the Blue Ribbon committee hearing on the pork barrel scam on Thursday.
The committee, headed by Sen. Teofisto Guingona III, had originally intended to devote its next hearing to threshing out Napoles’ involvement in the diversion of funds from the Malampaya natural gas project since it had already discussed most of the issues related to the PDAF scam.
Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago informed Guingona of her decision to attend the hearing even for just two hours since she is still suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome.
She asked Guingona to save a specific time slot for her to ask her questions.
Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano urged Tuason to “tread on the side of truth and bare all that she knows at the Blue Ribbon hearing.”
“Now is her opportunity to face her accusers, the people, and she should speak the truth,” Cayetano said.
Cayetano said that Tuason should reveal the identities of all the personalities involved in the scam.
“I also encourage the national government to continue using this formula in going after corruption masterminds – criminally charging all of those involved to push some of them into turning state witness and testify against the masterminds of the plunder of people’s money,” Cayetano said.
“This should not be limited to the pork barrel scam, but to other scandals as well like the Hello Garci, NBN-ZTE deal and the multi-million fertilizer controversies,” he added.
But a justice official who declined to be named said Napoles has become irrelevant as state witness with Tuason’s turning state witness.
“Before it was thought that only Napoles had access to the senators, that only she can prove that senators or their chiefs of staff had received cash. Now it’s different. Tuason turned out to be the conduit. She would get the money from Napoles and deliver it to the senators or their chiefs of staff,” the official said.
Luy’s lawyer Levito Baligod also said there’s no need to make Tuason a state witness. He said Luy’s accounts were enough to pin down Enrile, Estrada and a third senator, Ramon Revilla Jr.
President Aquino welcomed Tuason’s decision to come out in the open and testify for the government, saying her testimonies would “reaffirm the allegations of the whistle-blowers.”
“Now the process will be completed,” he told reporters in a chance interview at the Army Grandstand in Fort Bonifacio.
Meanwhile, members of the elite Special Action Force (SAF) have been pulled out of Napoles’ security detail at Fort Sto. Domingo and replaced by policemen from the Regional Police Safety Battalion (RPSB).
Chief Superintendent Jaime Gatchalian, Calabarzon regional director, said the RPSB members assigned to guard Napoles had undergone extensive training to prepare them for the job.
Senior Superintendent Ronald Santos, Calabarzon regional deputy director for operations, said Napoles would remain locked up at the SAF training camp guarded by security personnel assigned on rotational basis.
Chief Superintendent Reuben Theodore Sindac, PNP-Public Information Office (PIO) chief, said the SAF elements would be reassigned to guard members of the Moro National Liberation Front, who will be transferred to a jail in Bicutan from Zamboanga City. (From Philstar.com)