Draft letters to Noy, Ochoa found in Luy’s files

MANILA, Philippines - The Benhur Luy files have opened another can of worms with supposed draft letters addressed to President Aquino and Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. found in the files retrieved by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).

A DVD containing the 31,742-page Benhur files was released by the Senate Blue Ribbon committee to the media yesterday. It was encrypted by the NBI, which turned over the copy to the Senate on Wednesday.

There were at least two letters addressed to the President where the signatory supposedly sought the approval of P300 million for “badly damaged infrastructure, communities, local government units and major residential areas affected by the massive flooding in Misamis Oriental and Cagayan de Oro.” The letter was dated Feb. 16, 2012.

“We are still in the early part of fiscal year 2012 and yet our budget for this year could no longer handle and financial burden of restoring the infrastructure and provide direct assistance to our people here. Even with our calamity fund, it could only handle so much yet still too little to make an impact of what is really needed,” the draft letter read.

The draft letters were found in the folder titled “ODT files.”

Two draft letters were also addressed to Ochoa regarding financial assistance for the implementation of livelihood projects for small farmers such as organic farming for high value crops in various local government units.

The allocations amounted to millions for nine regions, including P65 million for Ilocos Norte, P18 million for Umingan, Pangasinan; P15 million for Calasiao, Pangasinan; P9 million for Sual, Pangasinan; and P11 million for Balungao, Pangasinan.

The amount requested in the draft letter amounted to P250 million. There was no signatory.

Luy’s ledger also showed now Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos as a proponent for a project with total cost of P5 million, where Jo-Chris Trading made the purchase request in coordination with the National Agricultural and Fishery Council in Region 3.

Cash advances were recorded to have been turned over in two tranches, P1 million and P1.250 million on Feb. 23, 2005. There were remarks indicating the cash transactions were facilitated by “Ducut.”

The project cost had 45 percent rebates of P2.250 million.

Luy’s excel files “titled JLN Cash/Check Disbursement” dated Aug. 31, 2007 indicated check payment made to Marcos, Ochoa, Serapio and Tan, under the law firm MOST. The amount was placed at P44,800 under Metrobank Bank and Trust Co. check number 3736.

Janet Lim-Napoles, the suspected pork barrel fund scam operator, had hired the services of MOST, the law firm that counts Ochoa as a founding partner, to defend her over a P3.8-million Kevlar helmet scam of the military.

There was reportedly full payment in 1999 but no delivery was made to the Philippine Marines. All 14 checks were encashed on the same day in a Napoles bank account, court records showed.

The ledger also showed cash deposited to JCLN Global Properties Development Corp. amounting to P430,000; P2.3 million deposited to JLN Corp. and P350,000 for office expenses of JLN Corp.

Luy allegedly prepared the documents, which were supposed to be approved by Napoles.

Among the large files, there were also entries on the payments made to the Bureau of Internal Revenue for capital gains tax and document tax for land purchased to one Cesar Diano.

The records also reflected cash advances made by a certain Manuel Jarmin and Fernando Ramirez, amounting to P21,000 and P20,000, respectively, which were charged to the so-called RAD Project.

In another entry dated Aug. 21 to 22, 2007, there was an amount of P30,000 deemed as donation placed under Jarmin’s name.

Jarmin was mentioned in the “extended” affidavit of Napoles, identified as an agent for Budget Secretary Florencio Abad.

According to Napoles, a certain Manuel Jarmin transacted for Abad whom she met at a Japanese restaurant at the EDSA Shangri-La Plaza Hotel, where Abad showed her a copy of Special Release Allotment Order (SARO) and explained what it was for.

It was in that meeting where she gave Abad P2 million. When the Notice of Allocation was released, Napoles said she again gave Abad P2 million during their meeting at Cravings in Katipunan, Quezon City in early 2000.

In her extended affidavit, Napoles recalled Abad inquiring if she had any non-government organization (NGO) or a cooperative. When she told him she had none, Napoles said the former Batanes congressman then allowed her to utilize the Batanes Electric Cooperative as an implementing agency.

She said Abad even returned the P4 million she lent him, but this time with additional P2 million as interest.

The lost files

The NBI was also able to retrieve the deleted files of Luy, which contained information about the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) of legislators that went to the NGOs of Napoles, as well as what seemed to be his personal files.

The deleted files, including those that the NBI was able to recover, were contained in a DVD that was submitted to the Senate Blue Ribbon committee the other day.

These were copied from the hard drive of Luy, which he used to back up his files while still working with Napoles.

The recovered files in the hard drive only contained some technical descriptions, including their respective names or titles.

What stood out were the names of some lawmakers or their code names as given by the whistle-blowers, which were used as file names in the deleted files.

Files such as “2011 DAR Enrile LGUs, 2011 DAR Marcos Savings, 2011 DAR Sexy LGUs, 2011 LGU Bigote PDAF, 2012 Bonget 60M LGUs, 2012 PDAF POGI 30M LGUs, 2012 Protemp SEXY 50M LGUs and 2012 TANDA LGUs 50M” were among those that were recorded by the NBI.

In the previous testimonies of the whistle-blowers, all former employees of Napoles, they referred to Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr. as “Tanda, Sexy and Pogi,” which they said were their code names.

The other entries in the digital files of Luy also showed several files using the code names of other senators, whose identities were revealed in the letters inside.

“Bonget” referred to Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., “Dahon” was Sen. Loren Legarda, while “Bigote” was the name given to Sen. Vicente Sotto III.

The recovered files also contained Microsoft Excel and Word files with names of some former congressmen, memorandums of agreement, contracts, sample letters and other records kept by Luy for Napoles.

There were a number of deleted files that were recovered by the NBI forensics examiners from the hard disk drive, but a significant number of these had nothing to do with the operations of Napoles or the PDAF transactions.

Most of the recovered files were audio files or mp3 format, which were mostly religious music.

What was interesting in the recovered files was a Word document that contained a list of lawmakers whose PDAF went to Napoles’ foundations through the Technology Resource Center.

For the Masaganang Ani Para sa Magsasaka Foundation Inc., the legislators listed were “Amadao S. Bagatsing (sic), Rizalina Lanete, Rodolfo Valencia, Joel Villanueva, Senator Jinggoy Estrada and Conrado Estrella III.

“In the People’s Organization for Progress and Development Foundation, Inc.: Congressmen Erwin Chiongbian, Samuel Dangwa, Conrado Estrella III, Victor Francisco Ortega and Douglas Marc Cagas.

“Philippine Social Development Foundation, Inc.: Cong. Rozzano Rufino Biazon, Arrel Olano, Arthur Pingoy, Rufus Rodriguez, Edgar Valdez, Senator Ramon Revilla, Rufus B. Rodriguez, Salacnib F. Baterina, Douglas RA Cagas, Arrel Olano, Isidro Real, Rizalina Seachon and Antonio Serapio.

“Social Development Program for Farmers Foundation, Inc.: Congressman Samuel Dangwa and Senators Estrada and Revilla.

“Agricultura para sa Magbubukid Foundation, Inc.: Senator Enrile.

“Agri and Economic Program for Farmers Foundation, Inc.: Senator Revilla.

“Countrywide Agri and Rural Economic Development Foundation, Inc.: Congressmen Erwin Chiongbian, Samuel Dangwa, Conrado M. Estrella, Constantino Jaraulla, Rizalina Lanete, Arrel Olaño, Manuel C. Ortega, Federico Sandoval II, Antonio Serapio, Douglas Cagas and Senator Enrile.

“Philippine Agri and Social Economic Development Foundation Inc.: Congressman Ernesto Nieva, Conrado Estrella III, Erwin Chiongbian and Senator Enrile.” – Marvin Sy, Aie Balagtas-See