Cash, checks traced from Napoles to Jinggoy

MANILA – Detained Sen. Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada allegedly received kickbacks from Janet Lim Napoles, tagged the pork barrel scam brains, through bank dummies in cash and checks totaling more than P150 million over six years, from his pork barrel allocations.
This is said to be shown in documents obtained by government investigators and presented to the Sandiganbayan and was reported first by a leading daily, the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
The same report, however, stated that the documents did not directly link Estrada to certain accounts cited.
Estrada immediately denied the allegations that he received kickbacks in cash and checks amounting to P150 million.
”The Inquirer headline that was published today is misleading, to say the very least,” Estrada said in a press statement.
”While the banner story screams “Cash, checks traced from Janet to Jinggoy,” succeeding paragraphs state that there was “no direct transfer of funds” to Sen. Estrada. Such malicious headline was clearly a ploy to condition the minds of the public that I stole public funds. This accusation is totally untrue,” Estrada said.

Estrada said he never authorized Juan Ng and Francis Yengco to transact with his priority development assistance fund (PDAF).
”So whatever transactions that they may have, if they have any, I have nothing to do with it. Any supposition that they acted as my conduits in the alleged PDAF scam is mere speculation,” Estrada said.
Ng and Yengco were two of the nine alleged dummies named in the official documents obtained by the Inquirer.
Estrada though has admitted knowing Ng, Inquirer reported, describing him as a respected businessman trading in steel roofing in San Juan City, where the senator previously served as mayor.
Yengco was previously city administrator of San Juan and later Senate director. He now heads the General Services Office in Manila whose mayor is the senator’s father, former President Joseph Estrada.
Benhur Luy, a former Napoles finance officer, earlier testified in the bail hearings of Estrada that in at least three transactions in 2010, Napoles handed out cash and checks amounting to more than P60 million to Ng purportedly intended for Estrada.
Luy, the primary whistle-blower in the plunder case, previously told the court that Ng was one of the people who collected the senator’s kickbacks, but one of the justices warned that his claims were “hearsay.”
”It would seem that the Inquirer article has been culled from the financial investigation report of the Anti Money Laundering Council,” Estrada said.
Estrada wondered why the report was first leaked to the media, before being presented to the court.
”Clearly we are being tried by publicity here,” Estrada said.
Estrada, along with detained Senate Minority leader Juan Ponce Enrile and senator Ramon Revilla Jr., has been charged with plunder for allegedly diverting his PDAF allocations to fake non-government organizations (NGOs) owned by Napoles.
”As the prosecution has so far presented zero concrete evidence against me during the course of the six-month bail proceedings, they now resort to black propaganda and unfair media tactics to make it appear that the evidence against me is overwhelming – when in fact and in truth there is none!” Estrada said.