Jinggoy slams Senate panel anew

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Jinggoy Estrada yesterday criticized anew the Senate Blue Ribbon committee for having a double standard after it immediately acted upon the alleged overpriced parking area in Makati City that involved Vice President Jejomar Binay.

Estrada, detained at Camp Crame on plunder charges in relation to the pork barrel scam, was referring to the inquiry being readied by the Blue Ribbon committee against Binay, who has announced his presidential bid for 2016. Two hearings are set next week.

Estrada decried the committee’s move to act immediately on Binay’s case when it has not shown interest in investigating the multi-million Malampaya Fund scam.

He has been calling for a probe into the reported misuse of Malampaya funds since his privilege speech last year, but this has apparently been ignored.

Estrada made reference to the apparent double standard of the Blue Ribbon committee when he commented on the recent Pulse Asia survey where 53 percent of respondents believe that the Senate probe on the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scam was unfair.

“The recent survey validates what I have been saying all along – the investigations conducted by the Department of Justice (DOJ), National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Office of the Ombudsman and especially the Senate Blue Ribbon committee lack fairness and objectivity,” Estrada said in a statement from his detention cell.

He also slammed the DOJ and NBI for repeatedly and recklessly dragging him and his co-accused, Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr., into the pork barrel scam.

He also reiterated his claim that the ombudsman has railroaded its investigation into the pork barrel scam without giving the accused senators the chance to rebut the allegations.

Out of the hundreds of lawmakers mentioned in the audit report on the release and utilization of the pork barrel fund, the ombudsman and the Senate committee, he said, focused on him, Enrile and Revilla.

“And out of dozens of non-government organizations who are said to have also received PDAF of legislators, they only concentrated on those connected with (alleged pork barrel mastermind) Janet Napoles. Clearly, this is selective justice,” Estrada said.

“The Senate Blue Ribbon committee, on the other hand, became the venue to demonize the three senators and publicly convicted us before the bar of public opinion,” he added.

The only motivation behind all these, he claimed, is to persecute members of the opposition while protecting allies of the Aquino administration.

2,000 Hail Marys per day

Napoles, meanwhile, is praying as many as 2,000 Hail Marys every day while detained at the Taguig City Jail female dormitory at Camp Bagong Diwa, her lawyer Stephen David said yesterday after a bail hearing at the Sandiganbayan.

And to make it more special, she is praying while holding a rosary personally used and given to her by the late Pope John Paul II in 1995.

Napoles has been seen carrying the rosary at the Sandiganbayan since the anti-graft court began looking into the evidence that ombudsman prosecutors have against her to determine if she should be granted temporary liberty while on trial. – With Michael Punongbayan