OUT of the 80 listed beneficiaries of former lawmaker Edgar Valdez accused of involvement in the pork barrel fund scam, only four were registered voters, a Commission on Elections officer from Surigao del Norte said Tuesday.
Election officer Liborio Zamora, along with two other government officials, took the witness stand at the Sandiganbayan.
Zamora told the Sandiganbayan that the Office of the Ombudsman directed him to verify the names of those on the list who supposedly benefited from Valdez’s Priority Development Assistance Fund from Comelec’s voters registration system.
“Out of 80 [names], only four have existing records,” he told the anti-graft court.
Zamora was in charge of the voting records in Burgos town in Surigao del Norte.
He testified that majority of the supposed pork barrel fund scam beneficiaries were not included in the list of registered voters for 2013.
The camp of Apec lawyer representative Edgar Valdez said not all of the beneficiaries were registered voters.
The two other witnesses, agricultural technologist Dioscora Plandano and agricultural officer Oscar Domiños, maintained they were not aware of the list of the town mayor.
The Ombudsman charged Valdez with graft raps for misuse of his P95-million pork barrel in 2004 until 2010.
Alleged pork scam mastermind Janet Lim Napoles, and officials of the Technology Resource Center, National Agribusiness Corp. and Department of Budget and Management were also included in the charges.
Whistleblower Benhur Luy said Valdez received P57,787,500 in kickbacks from Napoles.