EMPHASIS ( CDN PHOTO/FERDINAND EDRALIN)
The Norkis Group of Companies said they paid for the ads published in local dailies last week that confirmed that it severed its ties with former employee Elberto Emphasis.
In a ¼ page ad, the company statement read: “Norkis has long severed its ties with Elberto Emphasis due to loss of trust and confidence, grave and serious offense including acts severely inimical to the Norkis Group.”
The company is owned by the family of Rep. Luigi Quisumbing of Cebu’s sixth district and who is running for Mandaue City’s mayoral post against Councilor Lolypop Ouano-Dizon.
Norkis Group lawyer Elaine Bathan told Cebu Daily News that this was their response to Emphasis’s claim that he was accused by the company of pocketing P18 million spent by Quisumbing in his 2007 campaign for a Provincial Board (PB) seat which he lost.
“What Emphasis said, his move is actually in a way to put Norkis in a bad side and the Quisumbing family,” Bathan said.
Emphasis made the statement during an April 11 press conference.
Emphasis said he managed the campaign when Quisumbing ran for a PB seat in 2004.
He said the Quisumbings kept saying in radio interviews that Luigi lost because he pocketed P18 million of Norkis’s money.
Emphasis said he saw the ads but he asked why it came just now when he had not been working for Norkis since 2004.
“I can only surmise that the reason behind this is because I recently testified about Luigi using his pork barrel to purchase multicabs in his family-owned company,” he said.
He said the company received awards when he worked with them from 1996 to 2004, and he cannot understand why the company is blaming him for Quisumbing’s loss.
Bathan said the company thought it proper to inform the public of the truth about why it severed ties with Emphasis.
“He (Emphasis) was quoted in saying that the reason why he had that press conference was to expose what is a politically motivated propaganda and that he wanted to clear his name. This only showed, however, his vindictive intentions and does not in a way redeem his otherwise tainted reputation,” she said,
“If at all, his acts merely affirm that Norkis has made the right decision not to affiliate with him” Bathan said.