Suspended Porac mayor maintains innocence amid POGO issue

Suspended Porac, Pampanga Mayor Jaime Capil on Friday maintained that he is innocent amid the graft complaint filed against him and other local officials over the operations of the POGO firm Lucky South 99.

“Haharapin po namin ito hanggang malinis po ang aming mga pangalan. Kami ay naninindigan po na kami ay walang ginawang hindi tama. Kami po ay sumunod sa proseso po ng batas,” Capil said in an ambush interview.

(We will face this until our names have been cleared. We are maintaining that we did nothing wrong. We followed the process of the law.)

Capil attended the preliminary probe on the graft complaint at the Department of Justice.

He said he requested a 15-day extension on the deadline for the submission of his counter-affidavit.

“Nag-motion po muna kami dahil nag holiday nga po. Hindi pa po kami nakapag-file ng counter-affidavit namin. Nag request po kami ng extension,” he said.

(We filed a motion because of the holidays. We were not able to file our counter-affidavits. So we requested an extension.)

His camp said they may file their counter-affidavit by January 29.

The Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission and the Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group filed the graft complaint against Capil and others in October 2024.

Aside from Capil, the other respondents are Porac Business Permit and Licensing Office head Emerald Salonga Vital, Municipal Vice Mayor Francis Tamayo, and seven Sangguniang Bayan members.

Authorities said Capil and Tamayo were the ones who approved the business permit of Lucky South 99 even if it was not qualified.

The Office of the Ombudsman suspended Capil and other officials in October.—AOL, GMA Integrated News