Miriam slams JPE anew

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago lashed out at Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile yesterday for engaging in a personal attack against her in response to her revelations about his so-called Christmas cash gifts to senators.

Instead of answering the questions on the legality of his decision to realign Senate savings to the 18 other senators supposedly as maintenance and other operating expenditures (MOOE), Santiago said that Enrile has opted to use the tactic of turning the tables on her as his accuser in order to draw attention away from the main issue.

In an interview with reporters after her speaking engagement at the Centro Escolar University in Manila yesterday, Santiago was asked about the claim of Enrile that she had been accepting the funds approved by his office from 2008 to 2011 without any complaint.

Santiago, while admitting that she received the funds, said that Enrile was misguiding the media on the issue at hand.

She clarified that her instructions to her finance officer at the Senate were clear: any money that arrives in the form of a gift would not be accepted.

Whatever funds are accepted must be liquidated and must also have been received by her colleagues in the Senate.

“I said I have criteria like that. Why am I being asked to explain? Why doesn’t he do the explaining? The media are being misguided. Now we are going to focus on me when the legal and constitutional issues are focused on his actions. Why is it that now he wants to turn the tables by manipulating the media?” Santiago said, adding that she accepted the funds before because the amounts were modest.

Santiago admitted that past Senate presidents have all done this but never in such huge amounts.

In previous interviews, Santiago revealed that Enrile handed out P1.6 million to each of the senators except for four last December.

She said that an additional P250,000 was given by Enrile as a personal cash gift to all 22 senators.

The four senators who received only P250,000 and not the P1.6 million were Santiago, Antonio Trillanes IV, Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano and his sister Pia Cayetano.

All four senators are known to be at odds with the Senate President.

Santiago admitted that she only figured out what Enrile was doing recently, which is why she started to complain about it in public.

The amount of P1.6 million was considered by Santiago as “abusive and unconscionable,” which is why she said she had to call the attention of the people to this.

Santiago said that every senator must draw the line somewhere, especially on such allocations using taxpayers’ funds.

“You give a senator P600,000 and that amount may still be acceptable. Let Enrile be accountable to the people and his cohorts as well,” she said.

Enrile has defended his actions by saying that he has the power under the law to decide on how to use the savings of the Senate.

“While it is said to be purely discretionary on the part of the Senate President what additional budget to grant out of savings, or to give any at all for that matter, I have exercised such discretion with prudence and equity, and I have given the maximum that we could grant to all the senators concerned,” Enrile said in an earlier statement. – With Christina Mendez