Third District Representative and former agriculture secretary Arthur Yap is willing to cooperate with government investigators to bare everything he knows on the alleged P728-million fertilizer fund scam, offering himself as state witness.
However, the fisherfolk alliance Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) brushed off Yap’s statement as “a bad joke†as the group instead urged the solon to face the plunder case they filed on January 6 at the Office of the Ombudsman.
"Rep. Yap is giving the public a bad joke. Why offer himself as state witness to the P728 million fertilizer fund scam when he is also charged before the Office of the Ombudsman with plunder and other high crimes of corruption?" Fernando Hicap, Pamalakaya national chair said in a statement.
ANGAY PA BA NI CJA BOTARAN INIG PA RE-ELECT ANI NIJA!?
Now the target of a formal investigation under the Truth Commission, created by President Benigno Aquino III to probe supposed anomalies during the administration of former president and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
President Aquino has named former chief justice Hilario Davide to head the commission.
After Yap’s former boss and predecessor in the Department of Agriculture (DA), then agriculture secretary Cito Lorenzo who has returned to the country, has expressed willingness to serve as state witness in the course of the investigation, the Bohol solon also declared that he is ready to testify on the scam, also as state witness.
Former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc-joc†Bolante had testified that Lorenzo authorized him to “download money†for the purchase of fertilizer and farm implements in 2004. The money was purportedly funneled to the campaign kitty of the then president Arroyo.
"He was my predecessor. I worked closely with the man. I believe he knows what he wants to do so we just have to respect and support him whatever his decisions will be," Yap said in an interview with reporters at the House of Representatives.
Yap, a first-term congressman, attended the orientation given to neophyte lawmakers.
Asked how he would cooperate with any investigation, he said, "I've always cooperated with any government agency. When I was DA secretary, all files needed regarding that case, we surrendered. We attended all the hearings called by the House and the Senate. We've always cooperated with them."
Yap, who assumed the post in October 2005, said he was not involved in the fertilizer project when the scam happened in 2004, before the presidential elections.
"I was not in the DA at that time, in the sense that I did not hold any plantilla position. In fact, he [Lorenzo] pulled me out of NFA and designated [me] as undersecretary for Luzon operations to help him, so that's my role during the time that he was secretary of the department," Yap explained.
"FACE OWN SCAM"
“Yap should face the charges on anomalous deals of agriculture department under his watch instead of offering himself to become a state witness on the fertilizer fund mess,†stressed Hicap.
On January 6, Hicap and colleague Salvador France, vice chairperson of Pamalakaya, Anakpawis party list Reps. Rafael Mariano and Joel Maglunsod and Anakpawis secretary general Cherry Clemente filed a plunder case against then agriculture secretary Yap, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and other agriculture officials in connection with the P 455 million ice making machines which complainants said were overpriced by P2.3 million per unit.
Aside from the P455 million ice making scandal, there were other plunder and corruption complaints filed against Rep. Yap in connection with missing and highly questionable disbursement of agriculture funds during his term as secretary of agriculture, according to the Pamalakaya official.
"We ask the public to check the records of the Office of the Ombudsman and discover for themselves the strings of corruption cases hurled against him and his boss -- former President Arroyo. It always pays to check the record and the label of Yap as Arroyo's favorite Cabinet member then," said Pamalakaya.
Recently, President Aquino hinted that former agriculture secretary Lorenzo would be tapped to serve as state witness.
Earlier, Pamalakaya's Hicap also rejected the idea of having Lorenzo as state witness on the P728-million fertilizer fund scam, saying the report of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee which investigated the case was enough to indict former President Arroyo, former agriculture under secretary Jocelyn "Jocjoc" Bolante and Lorenzo as perpetrators of plunder, a crime punishable by reclusion perpetua.
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