Senate hearings being used as anti-opposition platform, says Jinggoy Estrada

Unidentified government source leaked Sen. Jose ‘Jinggoy’ Estrada’s mugshots.

MANILA, Philippines– Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, currently in detention for his involvement in the P10 –billion pork barrel scam, lashed out at his colleagues on Wednesday; accusing some of them for turning the Senate blue ribbon committee into a platform for the advancement of their own political interests and to rail against their political rivals.

“In the history of the Senate, especially the hearings in the Senate blue ribbon committee, it’s only now that the committee was being used to persecute individuals, including fellow senators,” Estrada said during a recess in his bail hearing held at the Sandiganbayan.

“They’ve done nothing but to use the Senate blue ribbon committee for politics. That’s what they did to me,” he added.

The beleaguered senator also decried how, in his opinion, Congress was being used to retaliate at the Supreme Court for its decision over President Aquino’s controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), declared in part by the nation’s highest court as unconstitutional.

Estrada said further that the senators spearheading the Senate inquiry into Binay’s alleged involvement in the construction of the reported overpriced parking building in Makati City “are those who can’t wait to get a post in 2016.”

He expressed his views that politicking in the Senate was “very glaring” during the Senate blue ribbon committee’s hearings on the pork barrel scandal, and added:

“What’s worse is that they are exacting revenge when they did not like the Supreme Court’s decision on DAP. What are they doing now? They’re targeting the JDF (Judiciary Development Fund),” he said.

“This will not end. Of course, the magistrates of the Supreme Court won’t allow (itself to be bullied). They have to stop what they’re doing,” Estrada noted.

Estrada believes that the Aquino administration should stop bashing the judiciary, and instead acquiesce to the court’s ruling on the DAP.

“Tapos na ang boksing (The battle is done with). There’s no use in being vengeful. Let’s just accept the (high court’s) ruling. It comprises the fundamental law of the land,” he said.

Comparing the situation to his own, he stressed that he has come to terms with the decision of the Office of the Ombudsman to indict him on charges of plunder in connection with his Priority Development Assistance Fund allocations.

However, he was quick to add: “But I’m fighting this case because I know that my conscience is clean. I did nothing wrong. I did not steal even a single centavo from the people.”