Who Am I

I am a Makati resident and I wrote this white paper.

First, I want to say that I wrote this paper absolutely because Jojo Binay is running to be president in 2016 and I do not want him to president. As a life-long resident of Makati and as a proud Filipino who is proud of his country, I wrote the paper because I am very very scared of what could happen to us if Binay becomes president.

I have seen it for myself during the last 30 years here in Makati. I have seen government officials getting filthy rich while squatters roam the streets. I have seen how the “free services” that they use to campaign actually come with a payment and a loyalty check. I have seen how when you keep people so poor, you throw them a few scraps and they worship you and you can do no wrong and a single family feels so entitled to power that Christian decency doesn’t apply to them.

I don’t want this abusive family to run the country. Maybe Makati can afford it because of all the businesses that have been here for years, even before the Binays came, but the Binay brand of politics will for sure bring ruin to a country that is just starting to find its way on the matuwid na daan.

The Binays have challenged me to “come out and be man enough to make your accusations.” Why should I still write anonymously? Because I am no one. I have no wealth or status or powerful political backer to protect me. I have seen what the Binays do to the people they don’t like and I’m not ready to leave my kids without a father.

I just want that the truth would come out, based on the documents and what we in Makati know to be the real character of the Binays. Abigail’s statement said I was just spreading lies and innuendos, but the documents are clear. They, on the other hand have never answered the issues looming against them and instead have muddled the paper.

To make things clear, I never said that they used Abi’s PDAF in 2007. The paper is clearly about 2008 until present. Eventhough there were no elections in 2008 and 2010, the Binays always have public events that we see all the time in Makati. The over P340 million does not only cover Abi’s PDAF, but also the amount sister Nancy realigned from the Senate PDAF. Despite her legal training, Abigail sadly is still not able to read and understand correctly.

They insist that all the money was used for aboveboard projects and was liquidated properly. Where is the proof?? They keep saying that the public is free to check the records but there are no records that the public can access. There is no record of how Kasanib used its funds. There is no record that spending P15 million supposedly on worms made a difference in anyone’s life.

What there are records of, however, is that Abi gave money to an NGO her family was running, an NGO in the Godofredo Roque ring of fake NGOs, and a GOCC charged in the Napoles scam.

I urge the Binays, if you really are innocent don’t make your answers about politics but about the proof that you are not corrupt criminals. Show us the documents. We Filipinos deserve the truth.

Binay PDAF Operations

The Napoles Pork Barrel Scam rocked the nation. The filing of plunder charges against high government officials Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada, and Bong Revilla is a welcome and long-overdue accomplishment. It is a sign that the “big fish,” high government officials with plenty of money, power, and connections are not immune from justice when they lie and steal from the Filipino people.            

But, there is even a bigger fish that has been doing exactly what Enrile, Estrada, and Revilla have done. In fact, what he has done may even be more brazen and shameless than Enrile, Estrada and Revilla because in addition to coursing public money through a network of sham NGOs, this official coursed PDAF money directly to his own NGO and personal office. Even worse, he has used his children’s PDAF, taking advantage of his family for his own personal greed and ambitions and teaching his own children to be corrupt. While Enrile is facing charges for pocketing P173 million, Estrada for P184 million, and Revilla for P225 million, Vice President Jojo Binay has used his daughters and son to divert over P350 million in PDAF since 2008.¹

In 2008, newly-elected Congresswoman Abi Binay allotted P6.6 million in PDAF funds to the KASANIB Foundation. It is an openly known fact that the KASANIB Foundation NGO is the local political machinery of Vice President Jojo Binay. Binay founded the KASANIB NGO in 1998 as a front that could collect private donations and government money for the Binay’s political purposes. He installed his political henchman and later Vice-Mayor, Ernesto Mercado, as an incorporator and President. He put his son, then councilor JunJun Binay, on the Board of Directors.


When Binay’s daughter, Abi, won her first term in Congress in 2007, Jojo recognized an opportunity. He insisted that she divert a portion of her PDAF to KASANIB. Abi allotted a total of P12.6 million (P6 million in 2008 and P6.6 million in 2009) to KASANIB² , which he, as Mayor, gladly accepted under Makati City Resolutions 2008-132 and 2009-042. Far from livelihood programs or infrastructure projects, Abi’s PDAF paid for pro-Binay political rallies and hakot crowds. According to one Makati resident, “Pag dumadaan dito ang KASANIB, alam namin na may event ang mga Binay at kailangan nila ng tao para umatend.”³

In 2010, Mercado and Binay had a falling out when Mercado challenged Binay’s son and namesake, JunJun, for Mayor of Makati. Since Mercado was still the president of KASANIB, the Binays could no longer use KASANIB as a front for laundering PDAF money.From 2007 to 2010, then Makati Mayor Jojo Binay used his NGO, the KASANIB Foundation, to divert P12.6 million of daughter Abi Binay’s PDAF to his campaign machinery and personal wealth. In 2010, Binay had a falling out with his Vice-Mayor, Ernesto Mercado, when Mercado challenged Binay’s son and namesake, JunJun, for Mayor of Makati. Since Mercado was still the president of KASANIB, the Binays could no longer use KASANIB as a front for laundering PDAF money. Indeed, Makati City documents and DBM records confirm that Abi suddenly stopped giving PDAF to KASANIB after 2009.^4,5 (If Abi claims that she really believed that KASANIB was a legitimate organization that helped Makati residents, why would she suddenly stop supporting them as soon as Mercado broke with Binay?)

Binay had to find a new organization to launder his daughter’s PDAF money. In 2013, Abi allocated P15 million to the Gabay at Pag-Asa ng Masa Foundation, supposedly for livelihood projects for the 2^nd district of Makati.⁶ Her brother, Mayor JunJun accepted the funds under City Resolution 2013-A-35.

The Gabay at Pag-Asa ng Masa Foundation is part of the Godofredo Roque ring of NGOs used to corrupt NGO funds in the same manner as the Napoles ring. Gabay at Pag-Asa ng Masa foundation was identified in COA’s 2013 Special Audit Report as well as by NABCOR whistle-blowers Rhodora Mendoza and Vic Cacal as one of the top fake NGOs that public officials used to funnel their PDAF into their own pockets⁷. No less than 13 legislators used Gabay at Pag-Asa to steal their PDAF, totaling over P108 from 2007-2009. Gabay at Pag-Asa has since been delisted from the Department of Agriculture as a credible NGO and Godofredo Roque has been arrested for illegal possession of firearms⁸.

In 2010 Abi also gave P12 million to the National Livelihood Development Center (NLDC). The NLDC is a government corporation that is deeply involved in the Napoles PDAF scam⁹. NLDC President Gondelina Amata is currently facing plunder charges together with Janet Napoles¹⁰. According to DBM records, Abi gave P12 million to the NLDC to train Makati residents how to use worms in their backyard gardens.
¹¹

P12 million is enough money to provide every single household in Makati’s 2^nd district with a hefty 530 worms¹².

If Abi gave P15 million of her PDAF to the bogus NGO, Gabay at Pag-Asa Foundation, and an incredible P12 million to the NLDC for worms, why her name has not yet been included in the list of corrupt lawmakers? It is just a matter of time. The COA audit only reaches until 2009, and Abi began using Bagay at Pag-Asa and NLDC in 2010.In 2011, Abi allotted another P4 million of her PDAF for worms, but this time it was part of an P11 million package that went directly to the Makati City government. There is no Makati City resolution acknowledging the donation.¹³


Perhaps Abi felt less pressure to funnel money to bogus NGOs in 2011-2013 because in those years VP Binay was already receiving his own large pork barrel. Beginning in 2011, Binay started receiving his own P200 million pork barrel budget, essentially doubling the P185 million agency budget allocated to the Office of the Vice President¹⁴.

With public pressure to scrap the pork barrel system following the Napoles scam in 2013, Binay grudgingly gave up his P200 million. However, another daughter came to his rescue. Although pork barrel was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, Senators were given the option to realign their pork to LGUs or government line agencies. Nancy Binay, the neophyte senator with no previous experience in government expect for being a personal assistant to her mother and father, realigned P300 million from her own pork barrel and other Senate savings to the department her father heads, the National Housing Authority. Since this realignment happened after the NHA already completed its budget plan for 2014, the P300 million acts as an unprogrammed lump sum that Binay can draw on at his discretion. It is his personal pork¹⁵.

Catching Enrile, Jinggoy, and Bong is important, but they are hardly the end of the story. There are serious questions facing the man who is one heartbeat away from the president, and who himself has acknowledged his presidential ambitions for 2016. The fight for good governance is not over. 

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<sup>1. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Junjun-Binay-Jr/321259072699 ↩
2. http://pdaf.dbm.gov.ph/index.php?r=Site/Search_breakdown/legislatorId/95/fy/2009/breakdownType/district ↩
3. http://www.makati.gov.ph/portal/roms/index.jsp ↩
4. http://pdaf.dbm.gov.ph/index.php?r=Site/Search_breakdown/legislatorId/95/fy/2010/breakdownType/district↩
5. http://pdaf.dbm.gov.ph/index.php?r=Site/Search_breakdown/legislatorId/95/fy/2011/breakdownType/district↩
6. http://pdaf.dbm.gov.ph/index.php?r=Site/Search_breakdown/legislatorId/95/fy/2010/breakdownType/district↩
7. http://www.gov.ph/2013/08/16/special-audits-office-report-no-2012-03-pdaf-and-vilp/; https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4I1yKpJVx9qSDFlaVNXNEljVW8/preview↩
8. Gabay at pag-asa links to Godofredo: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/322720/news/specialreports/coa-report-11-people-behind-web-of-dubious-ngos-in-pork-scam; DA disqualification: http://www.da.gov.ph/index.php/announcements/4810-notice-to-the-public-gabay-ng-pag-asa-ng-masa-foundation-inc-gpmfi; COA commenting on Gabay’s use of vermiculture as a modus operandi for corruption: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/508579/coa-demands-return-of-p7m-in-pork ↩
9. http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2013/08/26/1135251/coa-35-lawmakers-transferred-p1.7-b-pork-ngos]↩
10. http://www.ombudsman.gov.ph/docs/pressreleases/Senator%20Estrada.pdf; http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/482593/govt-agency-in-pork-mess-asks-not-to-be-axed↩
11. http://pdaf.dbm.gov.ph/index.php?r=Site/Search_breakdown/legislatorId/95/fy/2010/breakdownType/district ↩
12. This calculation assumes compost worms (the most common veriety used the Philippines is the African night crawler) cost P1,000 per kg. There are about 2,200 worms per kilo. According to NSCB, there are approximately 50,000 households in the 2nd district of Makati. Some estimate a higher number of worms per kilo (e.g. http://www.veryediblegardens.com/iveg/worms) If instead of 2,200 worms per kilo we change the estimate to 4,000 per kilo, that results in 960 worms per household: P12 million / P1000 pero kilo of worms = 12,000 kilos of worms 12,000 kilos of worms = 48 million worms 48 million worms / 50,000 households (according to NSCB) = 960 worms per household. Please note that a barangay in Mindanao was able to create 6 tons of vermiculture compost in less than 2 years with only P400,000 seed capital: http://www.philstar.com/agriculture/2014/05/18/1324241/mrdp-funds-vermicomposting-project-cotabato ↩
13. http://pdaf.dbm.gov.ph/index.php?r=Site/Search_breakdown/legislatorId/95/fy/2011/breakdownType/district ↩
14. http://pcij.org/stories/binay-bags-p200-m-pdaf-pork-train-to-malacanang/ ↩
15. http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2014/02/10/1288621/nancy-binay-realigns-p300-m-pork-nha ↩</sup>