{"id":23886,"date":"2014-08-27T19:07:14","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T11:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=23886"},"modified":"2014-08-27T19:07:14","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T11:07:14","slug":"senate-hearings-being-used-as-anti-opposition-platform-says-jinggoy-estrada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/08\/27\/senate-hearings-being-used-as-anti-opposition-platform-says-jinggoy-estrada\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate hearings being used as anti-opposition platform, says Jinggoy Estrada"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Unidentified<\/a>
Unidentified government source leaked Sen. Jose ‘Jinggoy’ Estrada’s mugshots.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA, Philippines\u2013 Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, currently in detention for his involvement in the P10 \u2013billion 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the history of the Senate, especially the hearings in the Senate blue ribbon committee, it\u2019s only now that the committee was being used to persecute individuals, including fellow senators,\u201d Estrada said during a recess in his bail hearing held at the Sandiganbayan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve done nothing but to use the Senate blue ribbon committee for politics. That\u2019s what they did to me,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), declared in part by the nation\u2019s highest court as unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

Estrada said further that the senators spearheading the Senate inquiry into Binay\u2019s alleged involvement in the construction of the reported overpriced parking building in Makati City \u201care those who can\u2019t wait to get a post in 2016.\u201d<\/p>\n

He expressed his views that politicking in the Senate was \u201cvery glaring\u201d during the Senate blue ribbon committee\u2019s hearings on the pork barrel scandal, and added:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s worse is that they are exacting revenge when they did not like the Supreme Court\u2019s decision on DAP. What are they doing now? They\u2019re targeting the JDF (Judiciary Development Fund),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will not end. Of course, the magistrates of the Supreme Court won\u2019t allow (itself to be bullied). They have to stop what they\u2019re doing,\u201d Estrada noted.<\/p>\n

Estrada believes that the Aquino administration should stop bashing the judiciary, and instead acquiesce to the court\u2019s ruling on the DAP.<\/p>\n

\u201cTapos na ang boksing<\/em> (The battle is done with). There\u2019s no use in being vengeful. Let\u2019s just accept the (high court\u2019s) ruling. It comprises the fundamental law of the land,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

However, he was quick to add: \u201cBut I\u2019m 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA, Philippines\u2013 Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, currently in detention for his involvement in the P10 \u2013billion pork barrel scam, lashed out …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":16836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,95],"tags":[1585,1158,1579],"class_list":["post-23886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news-ph","tag-jinggoy-estrada","tag-pdaf","tag-pork-barrel-scam","mauthors-angie-duarte","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}