Sharon Cuneta, dubbed the “Mega Star” of the Philippine entertainment industry, has blasted allegations that her husband, former senator Francis Pangilinan, benefited from his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel.
Cuneta was reacting to the statements made by Sen. Jinggoy Estrada in his privilege speech Wednesday, which named her husband as one of the senators who misused their PDAF allocations.
“We are not robbers. We are not like others who can (stomach to) feed their children using money that is not ours or that we did not work for,” she tweeted in the local language.
“Not all politicians are alike. (Take it) slowly. The truths should start coming out now,” she added.
In her posts on social media site Twitter, Cuneta offered to leave her husband and give a substantial amount of money to anyone who can prove the allegations against her husband.
“If anyone reading this can prove to me that my husband has stolen any amount from his PDAF in his 12 years as senator, I will give you P10 million in cash and I will leave my husband. That is how confident I am,” she said.
Cuneta also challenged people who are not satisfied with Pangilinan’s documents to indentify every single recipient of his PDAF allocation.
Cuneta had earlier claimed that the former senator’s PDAF was “well accounted for”, in a response to a question posed on Twitter whether Pangilinan was involved in the pork barrel scam allegedley masterminded by Filipino businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles.
The Commission on Audit (CoA) found irregularities with the accounts held by Pangilinan while he was still senator from 2007 to 2009.
Pangilinan’s second term as senator ended June 2013.
In a privilege speech to the Philippine Senate last Wednesday, Sen. Estrada revealed a Php50-million incentive to senators who convicted ousted chief justice Renato Corona of graft and betrayal of public trust.
(with reports from The Philippine Inquirer and The Philippine Star)