The head of the House Infra Committee said that the controversial couple, Pacifico and Sarah Discaya, may not be qualified to serve as state witnesses.
“They are not qualified based on the ‘least guilty’ criteria. For me, they are among the most guilty of corruption in flood control projects,” Bicol Saro Party-list Rep. Terry Ridon said in Filipino.
Instead, the lawmaker said the Discayas should settle for being placed under the government’s Witness Protection Program.
Ridon said the Department of Justice (DOJ) should study the possibility of charging the Discayas with plunder, or at least, the lesser crime of corrupting public officials.
“As one of our committee members mentioned, they can be charged with plunder, and the evidence is in their affidavit, where they admitted that they were involved in corruption,” he pointed out.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Ridon revealed that based on financial statements submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Discayas collected a total of P93.5 billion from the government between 2014 and 2023 for various infrastructure projects.
“Based on your admission, you were making a net income of 10 percent to 15 percent. That means that you made P9.35 billion to P14 billion over the course of those years,” he told Pacifico, nicknamed “Curlee.”
“Hindi po ganun kalaki ‘yun (It’s not that big), your honor,” Discaya protested.
However, Ridon reminded Curlee that he and his wife, Sarah, had boasted in recent controversial lifestyle television interviews that they were worth “eleven digits.”
“That means it’s in the billions,” Ridon said.
The party-list solon asserted that allowing the couple to become state witnesses will allow them to go scot-free despite having admitted paying billions in bribes to corrupt government officials.
