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Cautionary tale for the small fry
The Philippine Star
|October 25, 2025
How many people know Gondelina Amata and Michael Lim Benjamin?
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Amata is the former president of state-owned National Livelihood Development Corp. The now defunct NLDC was used to funnel funds from the P29.1-million pork barrel of Gregorio Honasan when he was a senator, under a crooked scheme that was supposedly designed by convicted scam queen Janet Lim Napoles.
Benjamin was Honasan’s chief of staff. Since 2022, Benjamin and Amata have been out on bail of P510,000 each. Yesterday, the Sandiganbayan’s Third Division sentenced both of them together with Napoles to imprisonment of up to 68 years for graft, malversation of public funds and malversation through falsification of public documents for the misuse of Honasan’s Priority Development Assistance Fund — the PDAF or pork barrel. Honasan did not face charges.
This story is from the October 25, 2025 edition of The Philippine Star.
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