Next Senate hearing on alleged bribery in signature drive for people's initiative to amend Charter set for Feb. 13
Senator Imee Marcos, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Electoral Reforms and People’s Participation, said the next hearing on the alleged bribery involved in the signature campaign for the people’s initiative to amend the 1987 Constitution is set for February 13.
The Senate panel in a previous hearing subpoenaed a certain lawyer Anthony Abad, who is supposedly the proponent of the people’s initiative and whose name appeared on the signature forms.
Abad had flown out of the country, People’s Initiative for Reform Modernization and Action (PIRMA) lead convenor Noel Onate said during the hearing.
In a radio interview, Marcos said that the scheduled date was to accommodate the availability of Abad.
“I don’t know how many hearings we will have on this, but I know that we need to talk to Attorney Anthony Abad,” Marcos said.
“He said that he was available on February 8, then he changed it to February 10. I scheduled the next hearing for February 13…and he said he will attend,” she added.
Marcos said they will also be investigating the source of funds for the Charter change advertisement that was aired on television.
“Do you remember that they said that P55 million was spent on the TV ad? The Minority Leader, Senator (Koko) Pimentel asked who the donors of the ad were, because Onate claimed that he funded half of that amount. But the remaining half is still a huge amount of money. He said that there were donors, but he didn’t want to give a list of donors. The donor’s list is not at the BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) and even the donor’s tax,” Marcos said.
“They do not want to show us where the funds came from. P55 million is a lot of money,which he said he brought to Mr. Greg Garcia. But why is the voucher or the receipt in the Avisado Law Office? That’s why we are confused. We hope we can get the whole story,” she added. Jaspearl Tan/DMS
