Estrada camp: Stripping vacated Senate office was ‘standard practice’

MANILA, Philippines — The dismantling of fixtures and materials from the Senate office recently vacated by Sen. Jinggoy Estrada was “standard practice,” his office said on Wednesday.

According to them, “not a single centavo of public funds was wasted” in the process, adding that the dismantled items, which were bought using Estrada’s personal funds, will be reinstalled in his new office.

“It must also be emphasized that similar instances of dismantling fixtures and materials from a vacated senator’s office have occurred in the recent past,” Estrada’s office said in a statement.

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“This is neither new nor unusual — it is an established and accepted practice within the institution, and singling out this particular transition for scrutiny is both unfair and misleading,” it added.

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The statement came after photos of the office being turned over to Senate President Pro Tempore Vicente “Tito” Sotto III showed that the space was left in a stripped-down condition, with several fixtures, including portions of the flooring and walls dismantled.

READ: LOOK: Estrada turns over stripped Senate office to Sotto

Lawyer Marian Lucinario, from Sotto’s office, on Monday told the Inquirer that the office was left in an “unusable condition” and that the situation was “unprecedented.”

Estrada’s office, however, maintained that the practice was not unusual and urged that the transition not be “politicized, sensationalized, or made into a manufactured controversy where none exists.”

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Estrada’s office also said that its chief of staff, lawyer Racquel Mejia, had informed Sotto’s office ahead of the Oct. 5 deadline for Estrada to vacate the room that the fixtures, furnishings, and materials would be brought to his new office.

This contradicts an earlier statement from Sotto’s office that it had not received any correspondence from Estrada’s office regarding the turnover.

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According to Estrada’s office, the matter was also explained to the resident Commission on Audit auditor.

Estrada’s office further noted that when the room was turned over to him in 2022, it was likewise bare.

This is again a contradiction from Lucinario’s message to the Inquirer on Monday, where she said that the office was “definitely not” in the same condition when it was turned over to Estrada by its previous occupant, Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson who was the Senate President Pro Tempore prior to Estrada.

The Inquirer sought Lucinario and Lacson’s comment on the matter but has yet to receive a response as of posting time.

However, Lacson also said on Tuesday that he takes exception to the statement pertaining to the state or condition of the office when he turned it over to Estrada in 2022.

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“Nothing was removed nor destroyed, precisely because government funds were used when I refurbished it when it was turned over to me,” he added in his post on X. /das