Cohen Diet is the only topic with GG Reyes

Pork barrel scam state witness Benhur Luy has admitted that he never spoke to Jessica Lucille “Gigi” Reyes, the former chief of staff of Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, about pork barrel funds or kickbacks.

At the Sandiganbayan which is hearing the plunder case against Enrile and Reyes, Luy said he and Reyes just discussed the Cohen diet, a popular diet program, and not about the commission.

Luy said he only spoke about pork barrel funds with Enrile’s deputy chief of staff, Jose Antonio Evangelista II.

Reyes has denied any involvement in the release of Enrile’s pork barrel funds.

Luy said it was their middlemen who made the transactions with businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, alleged mastermind of the P10-billion Priority Development Assistance Fund, and with Enrile’s office.

Provisional state witness Ruby Tuason, her husband Carlos Tuason, Napoles’ friend Maria Teresa de Joyo, and Napoles’ lawyer Alfred Villamor had been identified as the middlemen.

In a partial motion for reconsideration filed by lawyers Edwardson Ong and Mercedes Isabel Mayoralgo, Evangelista supposedly took full responsibility for processing the disbursement of Enrile’s PDAF allocation.

The Sandiganbayan Third Division questioned Luy’s documents for lack of important information, such as the names of the alleged middlemen in his records of transaction in 2008.

Luy told the court that these transactions were only a continuation of an advance payment and he failed to document several transactions made with different lawmakers who directly dealt with Napoles.

“I recorded transactions that I directly handled. Napoles had her red notebook of her own transactions,” he said.

According to Luy, there was no implementation of projects coursed through non-government organizations put up by Napoles, saying they merely overpriced the projects.

He also testified that Napoles, who is now detained for serious illegal detention, charged a five-percent “tax” on the kickbacks she allegedly gave to lawmakers.

“The five percent tax just went to Napoles. She benefited from the taxes,” adding that a lawmaker would usually get a 40 percent kickback, of which 5 percent was deducted as tax.

The camp of Napoles, however, said Luy’s testimony was incredible, with Napoles lawyer Stephen David saying it would be difficult to believe that the lawmakers would agree to a 5 percent "tax" on kickbacks.

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