Benhur Luy reveals the story behind the PDAF scam

Benhur Luy, the 32-year old "whistle blower" of the P10 billion Pork Barrel scam or PDAF scam told the stories before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee on September 12. His stories revolved on how some Philippine lawmakers and his cousin Janet Napoles laid out the master plan in pocketing a large sum of money which were intended for bogus projects.

“When I joined Mrs. Napoles, there were already lawmakers who would go to the office—that was already a system in the office,” quoted Luy as saying during the hearing. “They would go [to our office] and offer their PDAF. [They would ask] if we would like to implement [their project].”

According to Benhur Luy,the government conduits would get 10% of a project’s bid price while Janet Napoles received 40%, and the rest of the amount would go to the lawmaker whose PDAF was used. Napoles’s staff would then withdraw the funds from the bank, place the money inside several bags, and would bring the cash either to her office or to her residence.

“If Ms. Napoles was not in the office, the money would be brought to her residence [at Pacific Plaza Towers in Taguig],” Luy revealed. “It would be taken from the elevator to the masters’ bedroom. Since it couldn’t possibly fit inside her vault, sometimes we would place it on her bed, sometimes in her bathtub.”

Once a project has been identified and listed by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), Napoles would give the legislator half of their share. The other half of the money would be released to the politician after the Special Allotment Release oOrder (SARO) was given by the DBM. The “ghost” projects were usually unimplemented proposals, but Luy said that Napoles’s company would sometimes make actual deliveries, which were intentionally overpriced or were sometimes not completed.

Read more on the revelation of Benhur Luy about the PDAF