Bank accounts of Gigi Reyes, Jinggoy's aide almost emptied

MANILA, Philippines — The Manila Regional Trial Court revealed that bank accounts of plunder respondent Jessica "Gigi" Reyes, Senator Juan Ponce Enrile's former chief-of-staff, and other accused are nearly empty.

In documents shown in a television report, the Manila RTC Branch 22 indicated that bank accounts that could have held millions in supposed kickbacks from the Priority Development Assistance Funds scam of businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles now only contain a few thousands.

The court discovered the discrepancies following the release of a new provisional asset preservation order on personalities in the "pork barrel" scandal on Tuesday.

The order, stemming from a forfeiture case filed by the Anti-Money Laundering Council, was supposed to prevent the accused from accessing the assets effective for 20 days.

Two accounts with over P21 million named after Reyes now only contains P6,700 and P11,522.

The court also said that an account of Pauline Labayen, former member of Senator Jose "Jinggoy" Estrada's staff, now holds only P1,334.

Another joint account under Labayen and a certain Rhoderick contains P94,000.

Reyes and Labayen were charged with plunder before the Sandiganbayan on June 6 and face arrest for the non-bailable offense.

Accounts also covered by the preservation order are of Adelina Garcia Napoles and Alfonso Napoles, relatives of alleged scam mastermind Janet Lim Napoles.

Funds with Napoles' mother-in-law and brother-in-law now amount to a meager P2,094 and P1,613, respectively.

Reyes and Labayen were tagged as Napoles' agents who facilitated transactions in the embezzlement scheme for the assailed lawmakers.  - Camille Diola