Reaction of Senate President Franklin M. Drilon
to the speech of President Aquino

The negative propaganda campaign against the administration steered people's focus away from the real issue which is corruption in the use of the PDAF allegedly committed by some lawmakers.

I, for one, have been a subject of a highly-funded vilification campaign to steer the public attention away from those who are implicated in the PDAF scam and to make me appear crooked and corrupt before the public's eyes. Despite efforts of detractors to link me to Janet Napoles, the evidence shows that I did not allocate any of the PDAF allotted to me for projects to bogus non-government organizations, most especially those linked to Napoles.

We should all refocus our consciousness towards ensuring that our justice system will work by punishing and jailing those who pocketed people's money. A successful resolution of this case will bring about drastic anti-corruption reforms in government and more importantly, it will purge the government of corrupt officials.

The Senate has started instituting reforms to restore the people's trust and confidence in the institution with its decision to waive the use of the remaining PDAF for 2013 and its plan to abolish the PDAF in the 2014 budget.