I agree! The PDAF should be suspended

The 8th Aboitiz Future Leaders Summit (AFLS) kicked off yesterday at the Marco Polo Plaza Hotel. The summit brings to Cebu City the top students from top universities and colleges all over the country so that they could interact with the top executives of the Aboitiz Group of Companies. The students could literally break bread with them and ask them pertinent questions they may have in minds. This was a luxury we never had during our school days!

As I said, this is now the 8th year of the AFLS and it always fascinates me that the Aboitiz Group embarked in this annual event… perhaps as a sounding board for them to hear what the youth have to say in this day and age of instant communication. So call it a two-way street that everyone gets to learn something from this highly successful program. Today, one of their speakers is Maria Ressa who was once CNN’s top reporter and now runs Rappler.com. It will be interesting to meet up with this media personality. Kudos to the Aboitiz Group.

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The coffeehouses are abuzz… and you can read everyone’s lips asking the question, where is Janet Lim Napoles? As of press time, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) hasn’t yet found her and no less than Justice (DoJ) Secretary Leila de Lima blurted to the media that perhaps someone “tipped off” Napoles and her brother Jojo Lim. So Madam Secretary are you suggesting that the NBI has to be investigated for tipping Napoles into hiding? How rotten has our bureaucracy become?

Finally after weeks as a media circus, DoJ decided to issue an arrest warrant against Napoles and her brother Reynald “Jojo” Lim, the principal personalities behind the mega typhoon hitting the Aquino presidency known as the P10-billion pork barrel scam. However, the big disappointment is the arrest warrant is not for the biggest pork barrel scam that has struck our scam-filled nation; it is for the illegal detention of Ben-Hu, the whistleblower of this scam.

To think that just a few days ago, Janet Napoles so boldly appeared before writers of the Inquirer and she came alone. Usually, when people who have been so crucified before the media would accept a media invitation they would be with their lawyer. So we taught that in coming alone, she was sending some kind of message that she can prove her innocence. After all, the court of public opinion is really difficult to overturn.  But now that there is a warrant of arrest, Napoles and her brother are nowhere to be found.

From what we’ve read about that meeting, Napoles failed to answer the most crucial question of all — how she got to be so rich? Did we hear her say that her company was in the coal mining business in Indonesia? But she couldn’t even tell the press the name of that company, or how much she earned from that particular business. Now that she has suddenly gone underground, people tend to believe that there is some truth to those accusations hurled against her.

Searching the social networking sites on the Napoles case, I read this exclusive report from Rappler.com, which revealed that the eldest son of Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. happens to be a partner of Janet Napoles. Rappler.com apparently got this information from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which shows that a Leonard Bryan Bautista is co-owner of P B&J Corp., a business with James Christopher Napoles, the son of Janet Lim Napoles and her nephew Ronald Lim, Jr. This business enterprise was only incorporated on January 1, 2011.

Indeed it doesn’t help the Napoles case if they continue hiding from the law. In fact by hiding from the NBI, I would say that they are risking their lives because any of these powerful politicians who may be linked with this alleged scam could simply buy an assassin and kill Napoles and then it is game over for this expose. Then we will never know the truth about this scam.

Meanwhile, whistleblower Ben Hur Luy has issued a statement that at least P1.017 billion of Sen. Revilla’s pork barrel from the years 2006 to 2011 went to NGOs that JLN formed. At least COA has found an irregularity in the release of P9.7 million in Sen. Revilla’s pork barrel to the St. James Apostle Multi-Purpose Cooperative. But Rappler could not find any SEC papers for this NGO. Now isn’t that getting more interesting? 

While the pork barrel is in question, no less than Buhay Party-list Rep. Jose “Lito” Atienza Jr. filed a resolution last week which reads, “To immediately suspend the implementation of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) pending the completion of the investigation by the concerned government agencies regarding the alleged anomalies relative thereto.” Call it a gallant, albeit quixotic move by Rep. Lito Atienza. But you already know what is the response of the Legislature. There will be no probing the P10-billion scam. Another way of saying it is, “To hell with you!”

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