Senate President Manuel Villar was charged with plunder before the Office of the Ombudsman for the alleged failure of his family’s bank to pay a P1.5-billion loan with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
In response, Villar’s office said a similar case had been dismissed “for lack of palpable merit” by the Office of the Ombudsman in 2006.
“Clearly, therefore, this case is a rehash, recycled strategy,” read the statement.
Villar’s lawyer Ma. Nalen Rosero-Galang said this was a case of double jeopardy.
Former Senate president Manuel Villar Jr. said yesterday that he is ready to face his colleagues anew to defend himself over the alleged double insertion of P200 million in the 2007 budget to fast-track the C5 Road Extension project.
“I have nothing to fear,” Villar told The STAR in a phone interview shortly after he arrived from provincial sorties in Baguio City where he was guest of honor in graduation rites at the Benguet State University.
He also watched the Canao Festival and visited a foundation in Baguio.
“I am ready. I’d answer (the allegations),” said Villar when asked about the plan of the Senate under the leadership of Juan Ponce Enrile to pursue the complaint filed with the ethics committee by Sen. Jamby Madrigal over the P200-million “double entry” in the 2007 budget.
MANILA, Philippines – After deciding not to put any member in the ethics committee hearing the complaint against former Senate President Manuel Villar, the Senate minority bloc assigned the latter as representative in the powerful Commission on Appointments.
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr said Villar will represent the minority bloc in the 25-man CA together with Senators Joker Arroyo and Alan Peter Cayetano.
Pimetel said another minority member, Senator Francis Pangilinan, will also sit in the CA to occupy one of the two seats for the Liberal Party.
The Senate elected on Monday Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile as the new Senate president in a bloodless coup against the leadership of Sen. Manuel Villar Jr.
The vote was 14-0 with six abstentions. Enrile, who had been pictured as an administration ally, ascended to the top Senate post with the help of oppositionist Senators Panfilo Lacson, Manuel “Mar” Roxas 2nd, Loren Legarda and Jamby Madrigal.
Villar resigned before the voting took place.
Manuel “Manny” Bamba Villar, Jr. (born December 13, 1949) is a Filipino businessman and politician. He is the President of the Nacionalista Party and a member of the Senate of the Philippines. Villar was Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1998 to 2000—in which capacity he presided over the impeachment of President Joseph Estrada—as well as President of the Senate from 2006 to 2008. Read more
MANILA, Philippines – House Speaker Prospero Nograles is calling all pro-administration parties to field a common standard bearer for 2010 presidential elections, as negotiations to merge Lakas-CMD and Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi) near collapse.
In her report in GMA News’ 24 Oras Thursday, Maki Pulido said the merger of Lakas and Kampi seems impossible to attain before 2010 elections. Instead, Arroyo allies are now working to have a common presidential candidate to make pro-administration coalition parties intact.
MANILA, Philippines – Business tycoon and former ambassador Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco has revealed that the party he founded in 1992, the Nationalist Peoples’ Coalition (NPC), will field either Senator Loren Legarda or her colleague Sen. Francis Escudero as the party’s standard bearer in 2010 presidential elections.
Cojuangco made the announcement during the NPC Christmas party, which was also attended by heads of other political parties such as Speaker Prospero Nograles, president of Lakas-CMD, and Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Villafuerte, president of Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino or Kampi.
MANILA -(Dow Jones)- Philippine senators on Monday voted Senator Juan Ponce Enrile as the new president of the Senate, the third-highest position in the government.
Enrile, the national defense secretary during the regime of the late President Ferdinand Marcos, replaces Senator Manuel Villar, who resigned.
Senator Aquilino Pimentel told ANC television station that Villar had obviously lost the support of the majority.
If Senate President Manny Villar is so sure about the legality, morality and beneficiality of the second P200 million allocated for the C-5 road extension project, then he should waste no time in seeking its immediate release. Then, let his critics try to stop the faster completion of the project through the courts. This issue of double entry and conflict of interest is certain to hound him until 2010 unless he acts decisively by asking the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to release the second P200 million for the project.
SP Villar has already been cleared of the “double entry” issue by the Senate Committee on Finance headed by Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile. JPE, whom I consider the busiest senator in both committee and plenary works, said the addition of P200 million to the initial P200 million proposed by Malacañang for the C-5 road extension project, was done without any intent to profit financially from the double entry.
When Rep. Joker Ar-royo of the first con-gressional district of Makati was robbed of the speakership in June 1998, he asked some investigative journalist to dig deeper into information he received about an alleged land-grabbing incident in the hilly town of Norzagaray in Bulacan, right beside the foothills of the Sierra Madre. He had information that behind the supposed land-grabbing was the Villar couple, Manuel, soon to be proclaimed Speaker of the House by the grace of the newly-elected president of the land, Joseph Ejercito Estrada, and his wife Cynthia.
On August 17, 1998 Joker Arroyo spoke before his peers and charged the new Speaker with violations of the Constitution and the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, or R.A. 3019, in all of ten specific instances. The fourth charge of corruption stated by Arroyo was about the Capitol Bank’s receipt of financial accommodations from the Bangko Sentral between 1992 and 1998, when Mrs. Cynthia Villar was its CEO, and her husband Manuel was a congressman from Las Piñas, and now, Speaker of the House.
