JUSTICE Secretary Leila de Lima took the cudgels for the whistleblowers who implicated Senator Ramon Revilla Jr. and other senators in the alleged pork barrel scam.
"They exposed these wrongdoings. We will not know them if not for the whistleblowers," she said Monday following Revilla's accusation that main whistleblower Benhur Luy, whom he referred to as "Boy Pirma," forged his signatures on documents related to the use of his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).
De Lima also found insulting Revilla's mockery of the truckload of evidence submitted by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) before the Office of the Ombudsman against him and other respondents in the plunder complaints.
Revilla presented a toy truck loaded with piles of paper during his speech.
Meanwhile, former Iloilo Representative Augusto Syjuco reminded the Supreme Court (SC) that former Chief Justice Renato Corona was removed from office in May 2012 due to the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).
"He was not impeached because of an impeachable offense. He was impeached because of DAP. It is the money of the DAP amounting to P1.107 billion as additional pork barrel given as a bribe by (Senate President) Franklin Drilon and (Budget Secretary) Florencio Abad to 15 senators," he said.
Syjuco included this allegation in his plea for the SC to junk MalacaƱang's request to move the second round of oral argument on DAP from January 28 to March 25.
The Palace had repeatedly denied that it bribed senators to convict Corona although Revilla said Aquino personally asked him to support the top magistrate's ouster.
Revilla was one of the 20 senators who sided with Corona's conviction for failure to fully disclose his cash deposits in his asset statement. (Sunnex)