DILG's Puno says he will no longer resign

Interior Undersecretary Rico Puno on Wednesday said he no longer plans to step down from office, or at least until President Benigno Aquino III asks him to. "I was about to resign but the President told me to continue on," Puno told reporters in an ambush interview after attending a Senate hearing on the jueteng controversy. Puno, a long-time friend and shooting buddy of Aquino, had said that he will tender his courtesy resignation after he was linked to two major controversies — the jueteng allegations against him and his alleged mishandling of the August 23 hostage crisis. Aquino, however, said Puno will undergo due process before he decides whether to accept any offer of resignation. Earlier, retired Lingayen Archibishop Oscar Cruz alleged that Puno was one of the ultimate recipients of payola. But during Wednesday's hearing, Puno reiterated his denial on his alleged involvement in jueteng operations. "I did not and will never receive a single centavo from jueteng or any illegal activity for that matter," he said. He said he initially didn't want to defend himself publicly, but the issue has gotten out of hand. "When my mother, wife, and children continued to suffer and started asking me why I would allow these lies to continue, it has dawned on me that I owe it to them to set things forthrightly," he said.

Prove it Puno said he challenges anyone to produce "solid evidence" of his jueteng involvement and file the necessary charges in court. "With due respect to Bishop Cruz, who may have been misled and fed the wrong information, the allegations against me are all lies," he said. Earlier in the day, former Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Jesus Verzosa, Pangasinan Governor Amado Espino, Jr. and Baguio City Mayor Mauricio Domogan also denied involvement in the jueteng mess, saying that Cruz had the wrong information. Puno, however, said that he would not be "cowed and destroyed" by sectors whose only objective is supposedly to ensure that the Aquino administration fails. "My only goal is to help the President in his dream to uplift the lives of our countrymen, and until told otherwise, I will continue to do so," he said. Senate blue ribbon committee head Senator Teofisto Guingona III, for his part, said they will have to take Puno's word for it. "I would like to say that we'll take his statement as that," he said. Guingona noted, however, that he still found it "strange" and "evasive" that Puno could not tell them the names of his friends or relatives who were supposedly sent as emissaries by alleged jueteng lord Bong Pineda. "I still find it difficult to believe that you do not remember your friends or relatives (who) talked to you... but we have to take his statement as that because that is what he said," Guingona said. During the hearing, Puno said the "offer" to meet with Pineda was made in passing by one of his friends or relatives who visited him. He also reiterated his statement during the first Senate hearing on jueteng that he could not remember who these visitors were. — RSJ/LBG, GMANews.TV