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Ombudsman reaches ‘penultimate’ point in filing pork cases vs. solons


Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales on Tuesday said her office is close to finishing the filing of cases against lawmakers accused of being involved in the pork barrel scam.

"We are in our penultimate race," Morales told reporters in a press briefing on Tuesday.

Morales said that out of the 240 lawmakers mentioned in the Commission on Audit report, the Office of the Ombudsman has so far filed cases against about 50 of them.

"What is difficult is the gathering of evidence. Fortunately, there are some isolated cases where those who were charged of having misused or misappropriated their PDAF [Priority Development Assistance Fund], it turned out that the beneficiaries did not receive the kits that were promised them," she added.

In August last year, Morales expressed the hope they would be able to finish, by the end of 2016, all investigations concerning lawmakers in the PDAF scam.

This time, Morales is optimistic that they will finally finish the filing of cases by the end of 2017.

"Everything is possible. Unless we get [hit] by some other reasons or some other matters or some other problems, we expect to fulfill our target that we will be filing or we will be resolving all PDAF cases by the end of the year," Morales said. — BM, GMA News

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