Estrada denies transactions with Ng, Yenko

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MANILA – Detained Sen. Jinggoy Estrada on Monday detached himself from transactions of former San Juan City Administrator Francis Yenko and businessman Juan Ng with regard to his pork barrel funds saying that he had never authorized the two mentioned people to take on any deal.

Estrada said that reports about his kickbacks from his Priority Development Assistance Fund being coursed through conduits were “misleading.”

“First of all as I have repeatedly mentioned before, I never authorized anybody, Mr. Ng, Mr. Yenko, or whoever to transact with my PDAF. So whatever transactions that they may have, if they have any, I have nothing to do with it,” said Estrada. “Any supposition that they acted as my conduits in the alleged PDAF scam is mere speculation.

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The senator added, “As the prosecution has so far presented zero concrete evidence against me during the course of the six-month bail proceedings, they now resort to black propaganda and unfair media tactics to make it appear that the evidence against me is overwhelming when in fact and in truth there is none.”

He pointed out that the article “was clearly a ploy to condition the minds of the public that I stole public funds.”

“This accusation is totally untrue,” said Estrada. “Why was the report first leaked to the media, before being presented to the court or before providing a copy to the respondent…? Clearly we are being tried by publicity here.”

Estrada also said that it is unfair for the prosecutors to accuse them as “thieves.”

Earlier, an article in the Inquirer claimed that there was no direct transfer to the senator’s bank accounts from pork barrel scam queen Janet Lim-Napoles or her nongovernment organization. But the article reported that the check deposits or transactions were traced to the senator’s alleged conduits.

Most of the checks from Napoles went directly to the accounts of Ng and Yenko.

Estrada said that the article’s “malicious headline” is a strategy to urge people to think that he stole public funds.

“This accusation is totally untrue,” he said.

Meanwhile, the senator also said that he had tried to get the reports and documents of allegations against him so that he will be able to address them properly.