Source: GMA News
With the millions in kickbacks he allegedly got from the pork barrel scam, Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile “could easily afford” to fund the attack of Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) rebels in Zamboanga City.
This was the accusation made by Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, one of Enrile’s staunchest critics, in a statement sent to the media on Thursday.
Santiago believes Enrile’s defense background makes him capable of using the Zamboanga incident as “diversionary tactic.”
“The public should consider his background as defense secretary during martial law, with a proclivity for coddling former police and military officials, and a feckless ambition to rewrite history,” the feisty lawmaker said.
GMA News Online contacted Enrile’s media officer, Lizette Nepomuceno, for the opposition leader’s comment to the accusation, but she has not responded as of posting time.
Santiago was not the only lawmaker who suspects that the Zamboanga conflict was a diversionary tactic to cover the pork barrel issue. At a press conference last Monday, Magdalo party-list lawmakers Gary Alejano and Francisco Ashley Acedillo said they have learned from a source that at least P40 million was given to the MNLF for the Zamboanga siege.
Santiago also said that she is “morally convinced” of Enrile’s “culpability” in the “expensive rebellion” in Zamboanga, as well as the attack at the Commission on Audit’s office on Wednesday.
“Enrile is so desperate that he is like a crocodile, who has left his maritime kingdom and is flapping around on land, still hoping to kill his prey,” she said.
Enrile is currently facing a plunder charge for allegedly receiving kickbacks from the alleged P10-billion pork barrel anomaly.
The crisis in Zamboanga, launched by followers of founding MNLF chairman Nur Misuari two weeks ago, has so far claimed the lives of 126 people, most of them rebels, the military said. — Andreo Calonzo/KBK, GMA News
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