'Green warrior': Senators hail environmentalist Gina Lopez

MANILA- Senators paid tribute to the late environmentalist and philanthropist Gina Lopez who died Monday due to multiple organ failure.

Lopez, the long-time chairperson of ABS-CBN Foundation Inc. (AFI) and President Rodrigo Duterte's former environment secretary, passed away at the age of 65. 

Senator Sonny Angara honored Lopez as a "one-person green warrior," saying the staunch eco-warrior left the public with a "bucket list to comply with and follow."

"Gina did not preach what she did not practice. She was not a Powerpoint crusader but a living example of how to live a life that will not bankrupt earth’s resources to support us," Angara said in a statement.

"She was a one-person green warrior who took the fight to where it matters – in boardrooms, chatrooms, government offices, and in her favorite office – out in the open, under a forest canopy or underwater, where she was in her element with people she loved in a country she never gave up hope on," he said.

Senators Nancy Binay and Leila de Lima thanked Lopez for her service to the government, noting her determination.

"A staunch defender of the environment, she was steadfast in her beliefs and inspired us all through her passion for the environment," Binay said.

"Maraming salamat former DENR Secretary, Gina Lopez. 🙏," De Lima said in a tweet.

For Senators Bong Go, Richard Gordon, and Grace Poe, the late philanthropist will always be remembered for her passion in pushing for her advocacies.

"She was a fearless advocate and a tireless philanthropist, dedicating most of her life for the betterment of her fellow Filipinos. Her exceptional dedication in protecting our environment has no equal today," Go said.

"She was a staunch advocate of significant and meaningful causes for the country. She stood her ground firmly on issues she felt needed to be addressed," Gordon said.

"Sec. Gina Lopez came in our midst and taught us love for mankind and the environment, our common home. Thank you for touching our lives in your impassioned way," Poe said.

Minority Senator Risa Hontiveros meanwhile noted how "Gina fought with everything she had against big polluters" while Senator Francis Pangilinan recalled how it was a privilege to have someone like Lopez as an eco-warrior in public office.

"She’ll always be remembered that way: as a fighter whose legacy will be remembered by many," she said.

"Rest well and rest in peace, Gina. You did well in helping transform thousands of lives and it was a privilege to have worked alongside you in helping change our world," Pangilinan said.

Senators Bong Revilla and Joel Villanueva, on the other hand, extended prayers to the Lopez family.

"Tinitingalang earth warrior, philanthropist at cultural advocate, malaking kawalan siya sa ating bansa. Maraming salamat sa paglalaan ng iyong buhay upang pangalagaan ang kalikasan at kapakanan ng bawat Pilipino!" Revilla said. 

(A notable earth warrior, philanthropist, and cultural advocate, she is a great loss for our country. Thank you for dedicating your life to our environment and the well-being of Filipinos.)

"Indeed to live in Christ and to die is gain. Rest in Peace Ms Gina Lopez 🙏 Prayers for your family and loved ones. God bless!" Villlanueva said in a tweet.

In lieu of flowers and mass cards, the family requests that donations be made to the ABS-CBN Foundation. There will be a public viewing at the La Mesa Eco Park on Aug. 22 to 23.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Whistle-blower says lawmakers' aides got cash

Chiefs of staff of senators and congressmen personally got cash from the office of businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles as part of their cut from the pork barrel scam, whistle-blower Benhur Luy said Thursday.

Luy, a second cousin and former aide of Napoles, revealed that some of the lawmakers' chiefs of staff would sometimes accompany staff of JLN Group of Companies to withdraw money from Napoles' accounts.

"Cash po. Meron ho MC (manager's check) pero hindi nakapangalan sa senador. In the Lower House, it was fund transfers. They gave account numbers and we credited the money to their account," he said.

Luy said he never personally saw a senator or congressman receive the cash or checks but noted that he was sometimes asked to prepare the cash in their office, sometimes as much as P20 million.

"To the senators, it is the chiefs of staff who go to the office. There are instances when Mrs. Napoles asked us to prepare money, say P20 million, and say she is talking to a senator and she will bring the money," he said.

"It is the chief of staff who gets the money or sometimes they accompany us to the bank to withdraw the money," he added.

Some of the chiefs of staff got as much as 1% of the pork barrel in kickbacks, depending on how much money Napoles was willing to disburse, Luy said.

He also said their office at Discovery Suites had as much as P75 million in cash withdrawn from the different bank accounts of the foundations set up to receive the pork barrel funds.

Luy said Napoles would always pay 50% of the cut of the lawmakers once the proposed ghost project has been listed by the Department of Budget and Management. The remaining 50% cut of the lawmakers would be released once Napoles got the lawmakers' special allotment release orders.

He said Napoles also gave kickbacks to officials in several line agencies linked to the scam including the National Agribusiness Corp. (Nabcor) and Zamboanga del Norte College Rubber Estates Corp. (ZREC) of the Department of Agriculture; Technology Resources Center (TRC) of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST); and, National Livelihood Development Corp. (NLDC) of Land Bank of the Philippines.

Luy has accused Napoles of setting up fake non-governmental organizations to act as conduits of lawmakers' pork barrel funds in exchange for a cut of the funds. An estimated P10 billion in lawmakers' funds were reportedly misused in the scam and pocketed by Napoles and corrupt government officials.

The Supreme Court recently issued a temporary restraining order stopping the Department of Budget and Management from releasing the remaining priority development assistance funds of lawmakers for 2013.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

3 senators, other lawmakers 'endorsed' bogus NGOs - witness

Former officials of subsidiaries of the Department of Agriculture (DA) named Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada, and Ramon “Bong” Revilla as having endorsed their pork barrel funds to supposedly bogus non-government organizations (NGOs).

During the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing on Thursday, former National Agribusiness Corporation (NABCOR) vice-president for administration and finance Rhodora Mendoza said she was “very sure” that the three senators and several congressmen gave their endorsements to the NGOs, then represented by now pork barrel scam whistleblower Benhur Luy.

Luy would later point to businesswoman Janet Napoles as having started the scam to siphon lawmakers’ pork barrel to ghost projects and eventually to private pockets.

NABCOR is one of two Department of Agriculture (DA) subsidiaries that the Commission of Audit (COA) found to have had tie-ups with supposedly bogus NGOs.

Mendoza claimed Luy frequented the NABCOR office to follow up on NGO projects. She also said she met Napoles once, when she was invited to a “thanksgiving mass” at the Discovery Suites in Pasig City.

She also named other legislators as having given their endorsements to projects of NGOs linked to Napoles.

They are: Congressmen Conrado Estrella III, Erwin Chiongbian, Rodolfo Plaza, Victor Ortega, Samuel Dangwa, Edgardo Valdez, Mark Douglas Cagas, Rizalina Lanete, Arthur Pinggoy, and Rodolfo Valencia.

She said she relied on the documents submitted by Luy in assuming that the NGOs were aboveboard.

External audit

“Did one of the legislators show up [at NABCOR],” Guingona asked Mendoza, to which she answered, “none.”

She said that Luy submitted “external audit reports” that were also “certified correct by the legislators themselves because they have a list of beneficiaries.”

Officials of NABCOR and Zamboanga del Norte Agricultural College Rubber Estate Corp. (ZREC), implementing agencies for the pork barrel, earlier claimed they had validated the papers of the NGOs.

Prompted to answer if “kasama kayo or naloko kayo [you were with the NGOs or duped by them],” they said they were duped given the recent turn of events on the pork barrel scandal.

Mendoza was actually only at the Senate gallery but had to be called by her former boss, NABCOR President Allan Javellana, who said he couldn't remember the names of lawmakers who gave their Priority Development Assistance fund (PDAF) to NGOs linked to Napoles.

Ocular inspection

Click here for Senator TG Guingona's presentation at the 2nd pork barrel scam hearing of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee

Earlier in the hearing, Blue Ribbon Committee chair Senator TG Guingona said his team made an ocular inspection of the Social Development Program for Farmers Foundation Inc. (SDPFFI), Magsasakang Ani para sa Magsasaka Foundation Inc. (MAMFI), and People’s Organization for Progress and Development Foundation Incorporated (POPDFI).

Based on the photos given to him which were shown during the hearing, Guingona said “something is really wrong. There seems to be a conspiracy to defraud Filipinos of their funds.”

Upon further prompting from Guingona, Javellana – who was NABCOR chief during the periods covered by the COA audit – said he can remember the three senators’ signatures on the audit and liquidation reports of the NGOs in question. He alleged the financial plans of the NGOs were also initialed by the lawmakers.

He admitted to knowing Napoles, who met with him twice at the Discovery Suites. Asked what was his business there, he said Napoles wanted to be educated about the functions of NABCOR.

“Who is Mrs. Napoles? Why go out of your way to meet her?” Guingona asked. He answered, “We’re looking for investors, not just Napoles…for joint ventures on the projects."

Former ZREC President Salvador Salacup also said the PDAF that was channeled through the DA subsidiary was that of “Congressman Valdez,” which was then forwarded to SDPFFI.

He said the rest of the pork funds channeled to them by the lawmakers were for Pangkabuhayan Foundation Inc., which was not named by COA as having connections to Napoles.

COA earlier said some of the NGOs may not necessarily be bogus, but lacked liquidation documents and audit papers.

He said he did not initially think the transactions were suspicious “because we had mechanisms in place.” He said they require NGOs to submit documentary evidence from the Securities and Exchange Commission, Bureau of Internal Revenue, mayor’s permits, certified financial statements, etc.

Salacup said there is also a mechanism in the agency’s memorandum of agreement with the NGOs where the money is given in tranches. “Each tranche was also noted by the legislators or their representatives," he said.

The implementing agency has retained earnings of 3% from the NGO projects.

No bidding

Senator Chiz Escudero, however, pointed out that there are only two modes of awarding a contract to an NGO. Salacup replied, “We were not procuring, we were only partnering with the NGO.”

Escudero pointed out, however, that laws and regulations prescribe either the bidding or negotiating of contracts. “And even in negotiated contracts, the NGO is required to come up with a performance or security bond.”

He said he could not believe that with the mere endorsement of legislators, they accepted “hook, line and sinker” the legality of the NGOs “in clear violation of the laws and regulations.”

“I can’t accept that officials would feign ignorance of these [rules],” he said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Drilon votes Corona guilty on Article 2

The Senate, convened as an impeachment court over the past four months, adjourned on Monday having heard the final arguments of lawyers prosecuting and defending Chief Justice Renato Corona, and now placing the fate of the chief magistrate solely in the hands of senator-judges.

The senators are expected to vote on Tuesday either to convict and immediately remove Corona from his post as Chief Justice, or to acquit and send the Philippines into uncharted political waters.

It will ultimately be a political vote, and while there will be time on Tuesday for each senator-judge to explain his or her vote, the impeachment trial had in fact progressed, and will conclude, with no formal guideline or consensus on the criteria for voting to either convict or acquit. The senators early on in the trial had raised questions as to the "quantum of evidence" or the level of proof that they should seek – whether at par with standards for criminal, civil, or administrative cases – but there was never any resolution on the matter.

That will leave Corona's fate to be determined by a mixed group of lawyers and non-lawyers distributed over a number of political parties and affiliations, and each with different political considerations and interests heading into a crucial election season.

Congressmen composing a panel of prosecutors on Monday accused Corona of "deception of the highest order" and called for his sacking, as the historic four-month trial reached a climax. The final plea to oust the Chief Justice came from no less than the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Feliciano Belmonte.

The first Supreme Court justice to stand trial, Renato Corona is accused of hiding millions of dollars' worth of assets and other graft, claims he says were cooked up by President Benigno Aquino to have him removed.

"Palusot." Excuses, excuses. This was how Ilocos Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas - as member of the House panel prosecuting Chief Justice Renato Corona - characterized the defense of the chief magistrate in the concluding impeachment trial against him.

Fariñas said Corona and his lawyers' explanations for peso and dollar properties undeclared in the Chief Justice's statements of assets and net worth (SALN) all amounted to "one flimsy excuse after another" ("puro palusot") - all coming too weakly and too late supposedly after Corona had been caught in what lead prosecutor Niel Tupas recapped as "lies".

Fariñas said Corona's accounting for $2.4 million and P80 million that went undeclared in his SALNs were hard to swallow.

The Chief Justice on Friday tried to counter suggestions that the moneys were ill-gotten, saying the dollar amounts could be easily explained by his and his wife's discipline and foresight in saving dollars starting from the 1960's. Corona had even noted that he started investing in dollars in the late 1960s when the peso traded at "2-to-1" with the US dollar.

As for not declaring the savings in his SALN, Corona and his lawyers have insisted that the Chief Justice had no obligation to declare his dollar "savings" given laws guaranteeing secrecy and privacy in foreign currency deposits. The peso accounts, they add, were not actually entirely Corona's, and were supposedly aggregated and co-mingled savings of Corona, his wife, children, and even relatives tied to a family company.

Fariñas, however, mocked the very notion of Corona hoarding dollars starting from the 1960s. By the prosecution's accounting, for the Chief Justice's story to hold true, Corona started buying dollars "when he was in Grade 4." Meanwhile, he said Corona's story about co-mingled funds contradicted what the prosecution tried to portray as an increasingly convoluted story that at turns made clear delienations between his properties and assets and those of his children and relatives, and at turns suggested they were one and the same.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, 63, is accused of protecting graft-tainted former president Gloria Arroyo from prosecution, as well as lacking integrity and amassing a personal fortune above the limits of his salary - which he failed to declare as required by the constitution.

The maximum penalty for a guilty verdict on any of the three charges is his removal, but the Senate, sitting as a court, said it also has the option of imposing the lesser penalties of censure, reprimand, fine, or suspension.

In his closing argument Monday, chief prosecutor Niel Tupas said the senator-judges must convict and impose the severest penalty for Corona's failure to declare bank deposits including $2.4 million in US dollar accounts. He said the campaign to oust Corona was not one waged against one man, but rather one to rid the Philippine justice system of "evils".

"His lies in the SALN (his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth) run into the hundreds of millions and cannot be ignored," Tupas said.

"It is lying, it is dishonesty, it is deception of the highest order."

Tupas said these assets were significantly higher than the P22.9 million (about $533,000) net worth declared by Corona in his 2010 declaration, an annual constitutional requirement for all public officials.

Corona's removal was sought by Aquino, who was elected to the presidency in 2010 on a platform to end corruption which he claimed reached pervasive levels during Arroyo's term.

Aquino has accused Arroyo of illegally appointing Corona as chief justice just before she stepped down, allegedly to protect her from prosecution. Arroyo is now in detention while separately being tried for vote rigging.

Corona was impeached by Aquino's allies in the House of Representatives in December, which then sent the complaint to the Senate for trial.

Millions of Filipinos have closely followed the trial, which began in January, and various opinion surveys have indicated that Aquino enjoyed widespread public support for pursuing a judge perceived to be corrupt.

Corona however was backed by his peers in the judiciary amid warnings the president may have violated constitutional provisions in his zeal to remove the chief justice.

Sixteen votes, about two-thirds of the chamber, are required to unseat Corona. The senators, who include only four members of Aquino's party, have been tight-lipped about how they intended to vote.

The senator-judges were expected to announce their vote in individual speeches later Monday or Tuesday.

Corona's lawyer Eduardo de los Angeles stressed that Corona did not commit any "high crime" cited by the constitution, such as treason, bribery, or corruption, that would be cause for his removal.

Corona's failure to declare his dollar savings was covered under the country's strict bank confidentiality laws, his lawyer said.

At most, Corona's failure to declare the dollar deposits was a minor breach of another law requiring public officials to declare all their assets, and this can be remedied by filing an amended statement of assets, de los Angeles added.

"Certainly a high government official should not be impeached nor removed from office for any minor breach of the law."

Last week, Corona appeared as the final witness in his defence and delivered a three-hour testimony accusing Aquino of a conspiracy to oust him.

He claimed his impeachment was the result of a personal vendetta by Aquino following a landmark Supreme Court ruling to break up Hacienda Luisita, a giant sugar estate owned by the president's clan.

That court decision came shortly before Aquino's allies voted to impeach Corona. With reports from Joseph Hollandes Ubalde, InterAksyon.com, and from Agence France-Presse

source: interaksyon.com

'Birthday boy' kisses 'old maid'

MANILA, Philippines – Banter between the “old maid” and the majority leader defused the tension that followed an exchange on the floor between the “birthday boy” and another senator as the Senate session drew to a close barely two hours before senators convened for Day 17 of the Corona impeachment trial.

The “birthday boy,” Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, had followed Sen. Joker Arroyo on the floor in interpellating blue-ribbon chairman Teofisto Guingona III, on the proposal to involve non-government organizations in the budget debates, when Enrile raised his voice and warned Guingona, “I can also raise my voice”. Apparently, in the excitement of the debate, Guingona, known to speak like a “declaimer” at times, had unknowingly upped his volume, irking the visibly tired chief.

Guingona took the admonition in stride, but Enrile looked grim. A few moments later, Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III took the floor and moved to “suspend” the session until 9 a.m. of Wednesday. This raised the eyebrow of the presiding officer, Sen. Loren Legarda, who asked him, with a knowing smile, why he moved for suspension and not “adjournment.”

Sotto gave a long-winded explanation that basically meant: since it’s Valentine’s and everyone is expected to stay up late, merely suspending the session would allow the chamber to go straight to its business on Wednesday without having to call the roll and wait for a quorum. The amused Legarda kept pressing him, so Sotto blurted out, “I’m sorry, Madam Chair, that, as you yourself admitted, you have no Valentine’s date and you’re an old maid.”

Legarda smiled, moved to get hold of the gavel, and said, “well I can assure all of you who will be busy tonight that us old maids will go to sleep early and will be up early tomorrow. I can be here at 8 a.m. to work.”

Whereupon Sotto said, smiling as the camera showed Enrile cross the floor behind him, “in that case then we move for suspension until 10 a.m. tomorrow.”

Legarda replied, “the chair suspends this session until 10 a.m. tomorrow,” and banged the gavel, smiling good-naturedly.

Later at her regular seat, “old maid” Legarda greeted Enrile a “happy birthday” as he passed by, and was rewarded with a big kiss from the “birthday boy.”

source: interaksyon.com