Palace: Citizens sending letters to PNoy not a big thing

Manila, Philippines - For the Palace, people sending letters to President Benigno Aquino III may not be a big thing.

Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda said the Office of the President receives a substantial number of letters sent by a lot of people every day. He added these letters undergo a process and also through the offices of Aquino's secretaries.

Lacierda said normally, the letters will be forwarded to concerned agencies.

"It’s not a big thing that somebody writes to the Office of the President... It's a normal process where a lot of people, citizens, would write letters to government. And this is not a special issue," Lacierda at a briefing in Malacañang on Wednesday.

The Palace official made these statements after Janet Lim Napoles, the businesswoman embroiled in the alleged P10-billion pork barrel scam, said she has sent a two-page letter to the Office of the President last April, relating the alleged extortion attempt of Benhur Luy through lawyer Levito Baligod.

Related story: Napoles claims P300-M extort try

Luy, who was Napoles' former personal assistant in the trading company JLN Corp., has emerged as an alleged whistle-blower in the pork barrel scam. He reportedly submitted an affidavit to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) claiming Napoles was behind the scam using the pork barrel of senators and congressmen for ghost projects over the past 10 years.

Napoles said she sought Aquino’s help and claimed writing to him "with feelings of utmost disappointment, desperateness and extreme fear for our lives, as a result of the continuous threats, intimidation and even physical harm being inflicted upon us by some unscrupulous individuals, in cohorts with corrupt NBI agents.

Lacierda said he would confirm if the Office of the President received Napoles' letter.

"We will verify kung merong ganoong sulat," he said.