Immunity sought for whistle-blowers on vote-buying, selling

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) was urged yesterday to offer whistle-blowers immunity from criminal prosecution so it can effectively act against vote buying or selling in future electoral exercises.

“Transactional or total immunity can be given to any vote buyer or vote seller who could stand as a witness that he either received money from a vote buyer or gave money to a voter to buy his vote for or against a candidate,” veteran election lawyer Romulo Macalintal said.

“Only through this immunity can the Comelec be successful in prosecuting vote buying and vote selling,” Macalintal said.

He said the Supreme Court has affirmed this type of immunity in some election cases that it has resolved.

The Comelec has asked people complaining of alleged vote buying and vote selling in last Monday’s election of barangay officers to come up with proof.

Earlier, Macalintal said the “testimonial immunity” that the Senate might give to alleged pork barrel scam brains Janet Lim-Napoles is limited in scope.

“Testimonial immunity refers to a witness’ testimony or evidence, which cannot be used against him or her but should the prosecution acquire evidence confirming the crime, independently of the witness’ testimony, the witness may still be prosecuted for the same,” he said.

Citing foreign jurisprudence, Macalintal said transactional immunity “is broader in scope as it grants a witness total or complete immunity which will protect him or her from future prosecution in connection with offenses related to his or her testimony.”

Some senators have said shielding Napoles from prosecution would also depend on her testimony and her participation in the alleged misuse of billions of congressional pork barrel funds.

According to the Commission on Audit, bogus foundations Napoles allegedly set up received more than P2 billion in senators’ and congressmen’ Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allocations.

She is facing plunder charges before the Office of the Ombudsman along with Senators Jinggoy Estrada, Juan Ponce Enrile and Ramon Revilla Jr.

According to the plunder complaint filed by the National Bureau of Investigation and whistle-blowers led by Benhur Luy, the three senators supposedly received some P581 million in kickbacks from the Napoles foundations.

Napoles has been subpoenaed to testify before the Blue Ribbon Committee on Nov. 11.

Most senators expect her to invoke her right to remain silent.

Some of them, however, have vowed to extract as much information as they could from Napoles, saying “there are many ways of skinning a cat.”