There has been so much hue and cry on making businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles – who finally broke her self-imposed silence on the alleged P10-billion pork barrel scam – a state witness in the plunder cases filed by government against a number of lawmakers and other government and private individuals. In an unexpected turnaround, Napoles decided to talk and cooperate with authorities in getting to the bottom of how she and her cohorts were able to dip their hands into the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).
Napoles earlier opted to keep silent on allegations that she siphoned off pork-barrel funds in complicity with certain lawmakers and their chiefs of staff during the previous Congress. This was even after the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed at the Office of the Ombudsman the first batch of plunder cases against 38 individuals. Charged with Napoles were three incumbent senators (Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon “Bong†Revilla Jr.), five former congressmen and their respective chiefs of staff, 21 other heads of implementing agencies that got PDAF allocations, and individuals connected with Napoles’ NGOs.
Estranged cousin Benhur Luy, the chief whistleblower on these plunder cases, tagged Napoles as behind several “bogus†non-government organizations (NGOs) that received pork-barrel allocations of senators and congressmen who allegedly got “commissions†from her.
The lawyers of Luy and fellow whistleblowers expressed their objections to the reported possibility that Napoles may join them in the Witness Protection Program of the DOJ. Some senators and congressmen joined their voices to this chorus line.
Actually, the idea of turning Napoles into a state witness was first floated no less by Justice Secretary Leila de Lima herself. This was a few days after Gigi Reyes, erstwhile chief of staff of Enrile, returned from abroad to finally face the plunder charges against her. Upon her return, Enrile’s arch nemesis, Sen.Miriam Defensor-Santiago renewed her call to Reyes to turn state witness against her former boss.
Reacting to Miriam’s proposal, De Lima blurted out of the blue to DOJ reporters she would rather have Napoles – not Reyes – turn state witness in the plunder cases. A seasoned lawyer, De Lima very well knows that one of the principal conditions of the court to allow an accused to turn state witness is that he or she should be the least guilty.
It was obviously a slip of the tongue of De Lima entertaining such thoughts at the back of her mind. It turned out De Lima earlier got feelers from the camp of Napoles requesting an audience with her. As events later unfolded, De Lima indeed talked to Napoles and her lawyers last Monday night. This was prior to the surgery of Napoles last Wednesday at the Ospital ng Makati where she has been under hospital detention for her medical problem.
After that five-hour meeting with Napoles, De Lima announced to the press the next day she got a tell-all affidavit from the principal accused in the PDAF plunder cases.
By all indications, De Lima now has in her hands the ball she earlier described for her “slam-dunk†cases. She first exuded this confidence after Luy and the other whistleblowers spilled their guts to the DOJ and at the subsequent public hearings on the PDAF scam by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee.
But where did De Lima go after that tell-all meeting with Napoles? Not to the Ombudsman and certainly neither did she go to the Sandiganbayan where these plunder cases are now pending. The DOJ Secretary proceeded instead directly to Malacañang to report it to President Benigno “Noy†Aquino III. Is she giving the heads up to P-Noy?
Now here comes former senator and now rehabilitation chief Panfilo “Ping†Lacson announcing to the press that he, too, got a tell-all affidavit of Napoles. Lacson revealed there were at least 12 senators in the list provided to him last month by the husband of Napoles, Jimmy. In fact, Lacson disclosed he was even given a copy of taped telephone conversation that Napoles supposedly had with an unnamed lawmaker talking about a PDAF deal with her.
Even if yet unnamed, senators and congressmen naturally were up in arms. Calling press conferences one after the other, they challenged Lacson and De Lima to name names instead of keeping the public guessing with endless speculations.
Long before Napoles made this turnaround, it was from the affidavits of Luy and his fellow whistleblowers that the DOJ have been able to build the PDAF cases against the first batch of accused Senators Enrile, Estrada and Revilla, et.al. Many other names of senators and congressmen earlier identified by Luy and his company of whistleblowers did not come out in the second batch of accused filed at the Ombudsman. A third batch is forthcoming reportedly to be filed in the next few days.
The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee that looked into the PDAF scam similarly terminated its inquiry a few hours before the Ombudsman announced the filing of the plunder cases at the Sandiganbayan against the first batch of the accused.
Earlier on, Luy’s first lawyer Levito Baligod claimed there were other lawmakers named by his client as having transacted with Napoles their respective PDAF allocations. So the names supposedly included in the Napoles’ tell-all affidavit surely would not be far less or far more than what Luy has – being her chief assistant – but whose list has been obviously purged and sanitized before by the DOJ.
Lawyers of Napoles denied already the authenticity of several names of senators and Aquino Cabinet officials supposedly included in the tell-all affidavit of Napoles as reported in the media last week. Bruce Rivera, one of Napoles’ lawyers, confirmed Napoles only gave the list to De Lima and Lacson.
Rivera, however, was less than candid when he claimed that their camp has not yet reached the issue of immunity or plea bargain agreement in discussions with the DOJ Secretary. Surely, it was not out of the goodness of the heart of his client to finally spill her guts.
Described by Luy as a very religious woman, perhaps Napoles is thinking she must come clean before she meets her Maker. For whatever reasons she has, or legal strategy, if you may, the tell-all affidavit of Napoles has stirred ripple effects. No wonder it has turned many people edgy these days. For now, Napoles’ tell-all affidavit is not telling us anything new that we do not already know.