BY PRINCE GOLEZ
Manila Reporter
MANILA – Malacañang denied it has anything to do with the filing of a graft complaint against Rep. Neri Colmenares of the militant Bayan Muna party-list.
“We have no involvement or participation,” said Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. of the Presidential Communication Operations Office.
Colmenares accused the government of “trying to discredit the opposition instead of heeding the call of the people to investigate even administration allies” in pork barrel anomalies.
He called for a lifestyle check of all senators and congressmen, and challenged Malacañang to make public “all projects of departments and agencies under the President and all members of Congress who endorsed projects thru the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).”
Coloma said the lifestyle check is Congress’ call.
“We respect Congress’ independence as a separate and co-equal branch. There is no need to involve the executive here,” he told Panay News.
The Movement for People Empowerment (MPE) accused Colmenares of overpricing the construction of a two-classroom building in Barangay Dela Peña Primary School in Barotac Viejo, Iloilo.
The project was funded through Colmenares’ DAP.
Colmenares denied he made money from the school building. He also said MPE has “handlers” in Malacañang and Congress.
According to the MPE, for a two-room school building that was worth a million pesos only, Colmenares and his group budgeted P1.8 million.
Colmenares, however, said MPE is not a genuine anti-corruption group because it “refused to support our call for transparency in government officials’ Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth, bank accounts and lifestyle checks.”
Bayan Muna through Colmenares had endorsed an impeachment complaint filed against President Benigno Aquino III.
Meanwhile, MPE challenged Colmenares and Bayan Muna to answer the graft complaint it filed before the Office of the Ombudsman instead of “acting like infallible demigods in prophesying their self-righteous virtue of standing up for corruption.”
In a statement emailed to Panay News, MPE coordinator Tomas Calderon chided Bayan Muna for acting like it has “the absolute divine right to claim for righteousness.”
“They are no different from traditional politicians (trapos), and their only difference is using the masquerade and billboard of so-called people’s organizations,” said Calderon.
He added: “If Chairman Mao Tse Tung were alive today, he will surely recommend Colmenares and his gang of corrupt operators for a redeployment to countryside mass work with disciplinary action of at least one-year suspension from their Communist Party membership.”/PN
