Source: The Daily Tribune
Except for an admission that JLN Trading Company, which she formed, and the setting up of a foundation named after her late mother, Senate probers failed to extract any concrete information from alleged pork barrel scam architect Janet Lim-Napoles during nearly a six-hour grilling yesterday at a blue ribbon committee hearing on the controversy.
Napoles was unruffled even when some senators tried to convince her of perceived threats from personalities being linked to the scam, particularly high officials in government, including some senators, that whistle-blowers claimed acted in collusion with her in pilfering the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) of legislators.
Napoles appeared at the highly-charged Senate probe wearing a bullet-proof vest.
Napoles is accused of conspiring with legislators to siphon off about P10 billion from the PDAF in a complex fraud operation that lasted for many years.
Government prosecutors have said three sitting senators, five former congressmen and five ex-government agency chiefs were involved in the scam, which has triggered widespread outrage about deep-rooted corruption within the nation’s ruling class.
“That is not true. It is all lies,” Napoles told the nationally televised Senate hearing during a day of questioning during which she often sat stone-faced in a bullet-proof vest but at other times joked with her lawyers.
Napoles was taken from her detention center in a convoy guarded by rifle-toting police commandos, and she was warned during the Senate proceedings that she had good reason to fear being killed.
Senators questioned Napoles about reports of her family’s immense wealth including a luxury apartment, a fleet of expensive cars, a massive family mausoleum in a private cemetery and exclusive schools for her children.
Napoles denied she was extremely rich. “We make just enough to get by,” she said.
She also repeatedly invoked her right to remain silent, saying she did not want to jeopardize her defense against expected corruption and tax charges.
The Justice department has recommended charges be laid against Napoles and 37 other people, but none has yet been filed. She was detained after being charged over the alleged kidnapping of the whistleblower in the case.
Senators Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Antonio Trillanes IV tried to convince Napoles to spill the beans, so to speak, as they reminded her of the supposed serious risk she could be facing from those politicians with whom she allegedly had transactions in juggling tens to hundreds of millions in peso of PDAF, saying some are not only “homicidal, they are murderous.”
Both are known nemesis of Senate minority leader Juan Ponce Enrile who is among those tagged as a key participant in the scam.
Despite constant attempts of senators to make Napoles confess to them, some obviously tried to provoke her into refuting the allegations of her accusers whenever she issues a denial before the committee, blue ribbon committee chairman Sen. Teofisto Guingona III and Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano claimed that the hearing still turned out to be productive even as some of their colleagues were frustrated on Napoles being “evasive” in answering their questions.
Guingona said his committee will carefully study its next move although he’s still considering summoning Napoles in future hearings even if “she was very evasive and in some point, she was lying”.
Guingona said he will consult with his panel members following a review of the transcripts of the proceedings, whether to consider slapping her with perjury charges or cite her in contempt.
“What is important is the credibility of the truth. The whistleblowers made positive assertions. What is important is what people believe – the general denial of Napoles versus the positive assertions. That’s what’s important,” Guingona added.
“I’m satisfied because there was a stark contrast witnessed by the public, one who insisted on mostly denials stating ‘I don’t know’, ‘I know nothing’, and ‘That is not true’ compared to the very positive assertions with details (from whistleblowers),” Guingona added.
“Faced with those details, who would you believe? There’s so much contrast. It’s like black and white,” Guingona pointed out.
“Really if she doesn’t want to answer, if she invokes her right, that’s her lookout but the point is, we were able to show and contrast between general denials and very, very specific positive assertions by the whistleblowers. So we don’t have to let her speak the truth because we have other whistleblowers who are so credible,” he said in a briefing after the hearing.
In testifying before the senators, Napoles eluded the senators’ efforts to pin her down by repeatedly invoking her right against self-incrimination, citing the pending cases against her in court and in countering the affirmation of the whistleblowers’ claims on her being supposedly on top of the scam.
On the pronouncements reiterated once again in the hearing by the whistleblowers on the alleged percentage of sharing of 50 percent of PDAF releases to lawmakers, five percent to their chiefs of staff and 10 percent to implementing agencies as kickbacks – Napoles merely issued a flat denial.
“Not true, your honor,” she said without further elaborating.
Initially, Napoles requested to be allowed to testify in executive session “due to the sensitivity of the issue” but committee members turned this down.
Guingona explained the panel can only resort to an executive session “if the committee determines that national security is involved.”
As Senate probers took turns grillng her, Napoles repeatedly told the committee she could not answer questions on her alleged questioned transactions since she and some other family members are the subject of an investigation by the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
She added that these were also covered by the plunder cases filed against her and several lawmakers linked to the anomalies.
This developed as Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, interviewed at the sidelines of the hearing, told reporters the Department of Justice was in the process of “completing the second batch of PDAF misuse cases” even as she admitted that the National Bureau of Investigation was conducting a separate probe on “other components of the Napoles scam.”
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