PCIJ SENT 20 legislators implicated in the alleged corruption of pork funds separate letters requesting for comments. Only three responded in writing, a fourth had his chief of staff interviewed on cam, and a fifth promised to send his reply via courier.

AS THINGS stand, it looks like the ruling coalition led by the Liberal Party (LP) of President Benigno S. Aquino III has more members implicated in the pork-barrel scandal than parties belonging to the opposition.

On Sept. 11, 2013, a day after the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order on all PDAF spending, Binay announced that he had decided to remove pork from the OVP budget.

“KAHINDIK-HINDIK” or horrible in English, was how then Commission on Audit (COA) Chairperson Maria Gracia Pulido-Tan described the corruption in pork that her team of 18 COA Special Audits Office staff and a Technical Audit specialist uncovered when they scrutinized pork-barrel projects supposedly implemented from 2007 to 2009.