5 more whistleblowers willing to testify in Senate 'pork' probe

MANILA, Philippines - Five former employees of alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles are willing to testify at the Senate, their lawyer said Monday.

Atty. Lourdes Benipayo, legal counsel of the whistleblowers, said her clients will attend the ongoing probe into the P10-billion fund scam involving bogus non-government organizations of Napoles and legislators' Priority Development Assistance Fund.

"If they are called, they are prepared to tell the Senate what they know, based on their personal knowledge," Benipayo said in a television interview.

She said her clients are employees of Napoles: one a bookkeeper, another a financial clreak and three were named as presidents of NGOs.

"They are recent employees until they received subpoenas," she said, noting some of them are now under the Department of Justice's Witness Protection Program.

Benipayo said her clients were mere employees and had no knowledge of the billions of pesos being transacted by Napoles with lawmakers.

"Pagpasok nila employees lang sila. Hindi nila akalain na malaking transaksyon ang ginagawa nila. They were just told what to do," she said.

Some of the employees of Napoles got P20,000 while others received P50,000 as salaries, Benipayo noted.

She also stressed that her clients have not spoken with any of the legislators regarding the scam since principal witness, Benhur Luy, has already been called by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee to testify in its hearing.

Last week, the DOJ filed plunder raps before the Office of the Ombudsman against several lawmakers, including incumbent senators Bong Revilla Jr., Juan Ponce Enrile, and Jinggoy Estrada.