Alleged pork-barrel-scam queen Janet Lim-Napoles gifted the budget officials of the Aquino administration with expensive religious items, food, signature leather goods and trips abroad, a hearing was told on Thursday.
During the resumption of his testimony at the First Division of the Sandiganbayan, whistleblower Benjamin Luy said the gifts were given to the Budget officials in consideration of the dealings of Napoles’s foundations using the Priority Development Assistance Fund or pork barrel of some legislators.
Luy said among the recipients of the gifts were Marilou Bare, Rosario Nuñez and Lalaine Paule, the staff members of former Budget Undersecretary Mario Relampagos.
Luy continued his testimony at the Sandiganbayan in the plunder case involving Napoles, former senator Bong Revilla, his former lawyer Richard Cambe and several others.
“We gave bags, trays of fruit, customized rosaries as gifts,” Luy said in Filipino.
He also claimed he once brought food from the fishermen’s stalls in Parañaque to the Budget department staff, and that they were also invited to one of the parties hosted by Napoles at the Heritage Park in Taguig City. He did not explain why Napoles threw a party in a cemetery.
In one instance, Luy said, he accompanied Budget department staff members in a food-tasting event at an expensive restaurant on Timog Avenue, Quezon City.
“That was for the birthday of Undersecretary Mario Relampagos that was hosted by Mrs. Napoles,” Luy said.
Relampagos, Bare, Nuñez, and Paule had pleaded not guilty to the charges filed in the wake of the pork barrel scam.
Relampagos is now abroad. He had yet to return to the country after a trip to the United States last year, and his lawyers claim that the “extreme injustice” he is experiencing prevents him from returning to the country.