Cunanan at Senate: Test of worthiness

He must prove himself to be the least guilty, to qualify as state witness and be cleared of conspiracy in plunder.

Dennis Cunanan is doing all the right things so far — in showing worthiness to be a state witness in the P10-billion pork barrel scam. His real test has yet to come, when he actually testifies at the Senate. If he tells the whole truth, then he can be cleared of conspiracy in plunder.

Cunanan has opened his bank accounts to official scrutiny. That can dispel suspicion that he shared in lawmakers’ looting of “pork” funds through bogus projects. Waiving his bank-secrecy right allows investigators to pry into his accounts with no tedious court consent.

Earlier disavowing bribe taking, Cunanan consented to a lifestyle check. He offered for examination his yearly statements of assets, liabilities and net worth as government executive. Authorities can check his activities back to 2007-2009, when the congressional “pork” plunder took place.

Cunanan went on indefinite leave as Technology Resource Center chief as soon as implicated last September. Then on official trip abroad, he hurried home to face probers, demonstrating openness to cooperate.

In a case filed with the Ombudsman, Cunanan is alleged to have signed papers that allowed lawmakers to use the TRC as conduit for the scam. He was then TRC deputy. Thirty-seven other persons are charged, including Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada, and Bong Revilla, and five past and present congressmen. Accused of plunder too are TRC ex-director Alan Ortiz and counterparts in other state corporations.

The lawmakers allegedly assigned part of their multimillion-peso “pork” to the TRC, then chose the beneficiary NGOs. Most of the NGOs were concoctions of “pork” fixer Janet Lim Napoles, presently in jail for serious illegal detention of nephew Benhur Luy. Blowing the whistle on Napoles’s racket, Luy and nine co-employees detailed to authorities the conspirators.

In linking Cunanan, Luy had calculated around P539 million in “pork” filched through the TRC. Cunanan, in a later 26-page affidavit, recalls at least P600 million to fake NGOs not only of Napoles but other fixers as well. He says ex-congressmen Ruffy Biazon and Joel Villanueva, now administration bureaucrats, took part in the scam. Still being probed by the NBI, the two are not among the five indicted congressmen.

Justice Sec. Leila de Lima believes Cunanan’s account to be crucial. The latter can belie the lawmakers’ alibi that their signatures were forged in official correspondences with the TRC. Cunanan swears personally to have confirmed the fund movements with Estrada, Revilla, and Enrile’s chief aide Gigi Reyes. He recalls one Christmas when he and his staff had to work overtime on the “pork” fund release, having been scolded by Estrada and Revilla for slowness.

Cunanan needs to prove being the least guilty, to qualify as state witness. He says his signing of TRC papers as deputy was perfunctory and ministerial. When appointed by President Noynoy as head in 2010, he had the NGOs audited and the fakes blacklisted.

De Lima says there’s a smear campaign against Cunanan, part of it his purported living in a mansion. Cunanan earlier had shown probers that house, actually modest, not his but a brother’s, who took out and is still amortizing a bank loan for it.

Two critical questions are sure to be asked of Cunanan in tomorrow’s Senate inquiry. Why did he not, as a government exec, squeal on the plunder as early as 2007-2009? Who else, aside from those already named, used the TRC for fraud? His exoneration depends on convincing answers.

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The exposure of the “pork” scam animates political foes to strike at Camarines Sur Rep. Arnulfo Fuentebella. Citing a state audit report, ex-governor L-Ray Villafuerte is petitioning the Ombudsman to act on the P80-million plunder rap he filed three years ago. Other local pols are seeking abolition of the Partido Development Authority, Fuentebella’s creation as onetime Speaker, among the state corporations used in “pork” fraud.

The Commission on Audit has mentioned Fuentebella among 182 congressmen with misused “pork” and local infrastructure funds in 2007-2009. Questioned was P42.27 million that went to his congressional turf, known as “Partido district.”

Villafuerte told the Ombudsman, in a supplemental complaint and petition to expedite, that the COA finding bolsters his earlier charge. In the 2011 rap, he accused Fuentebella of diverting P80 million in “pork” and public works funds to a five-hectare family resort in the Partido district. Implicated were Fuentebella’s wife and son, mayors of adjoining towns in the district, and another son who heads the PDA.

Vice Mayor Alfredo Gonzaga of Goa, former mayor Elmo Bombase of Tigaon, and ex-councilor Francisco Tria of Sagñay are directing fire at the PDA. Created by a Fuentebella-sponsored law, the agency is unique in functioning solely for a congressional district. It was among 35 listed as non-performing, so to be abolished, in a bill filed last year.

Among the bad agencies were those linked to “pork” fixer Napoles’s scam: National Agribusiness Corp., Philippine Forest Corp., Zamboanga Rubber Estate, and National Livelihood Development Corp. The Congress bill has since been reduced to 19, with the PDA excluded allegedly through political horse-trading.

Fuentebella dismisses Villafuerte’s rap as “politicking,” but has yet to retort to the COA and the additional complaint at the Ombudsman.

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