Alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles has been provisionally covered by the Witness Protection Program as of February 27.
This is according to documents from the Department of Justice’s Witness Protection Security and Benefit Program (WPSBP), which it released on Friday.
The Philippine Star quoted Justice Undersecretary Erickson Balmes as saying Napoles executed an affidavit on the rigged multi-billion Priority Development Assistance Program (PDAF) under the administration of former President Benigno Aquino III.
(Read more: https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/03/16/1797337/janet-lim-napoles-now-enjoying-partial-witness-protection.)
Senior Assistant State Prosecutor and WPSBP Program Director Ma. Nerissa Molina-Carpio signed the certification stating that Napoles has been provisionally covered by the WPSBP.
In an urgent motion dated March 15, 2018, Napoles’ counsel from the David Buenaventura & Ang Law Offices asked the First Division of the Sandiganbayan to issue an order directing the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology at Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan to transfer the custody of Napoles to the DOJ’s Witness Protection Program.
Her lawyer argued that “there are already manifestations of threat, intimidation, and harassment making her security a concern in view of the fact that her present place of confinement is publicly known.”
“There were recorded incidents of harassments, intimidation, and threats on her life and security, which could be avoided if the DOJ-WPP would be allowed to perform its mandate to protect (Napoles) as covered witness,” they added.
Back in 2013, the Philippine Daily Inquirer released a series of reports about the abduction and rescue of Benhur Luy, an employee of JLN Corp., who would lift the curtain on what would become known as the pork barrel scam.
Napoles, his cousin and the co-owner of the company with her brother Reynald, had supposedly been conniving with lawmakers and other government officials for ten years to funnel billions of pesos in taxpayers’ money into bogus non-governmental organizations which she allegedly set up, thus, ending up in the politicians’ pockets.
She was arrested and taken to Camp Crame, then to Makati City Jail, and by the end of the year, to Fort Sto. Domingo in Laguna, on charges of serious illegal detention of Luy.
In the same year, the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee began investigating the supposed scam, with Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada, Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan, and Ramon “Bong” Revilla, Jr. implicated as a special audit for 2007 to 2009 by the Commission on Audit showed millions of their PDAF ending up with bogus NGOs, including those tied to Napoles.
Filipinos banded together on various occasions to protest the scam and call for the scrapping of pork, especially during the Million People March in Luneta in August 2013.
The Supreme Court would later declare PDAF unconstitutional. Aquino’s Disbursement Acceleration Program was also questioned as a source of corruption.
The National Bureau of Investigation then filed plunder charges against the lawmakers involved in the scam.
In 2014, then Justice Secretary Leila de Lima submitted an official list of politicians linked to the pork barrel scam by Napoles to the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee.
The so-called “Napolist” included those of former and incumbent senators: Robert Barbers (deceased), Rodolfo “Pong” Biazon, Alan Peter Cayetano (now Foreign Affairs Secretary), Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito, Francis “Chiz” Escudero, Jinggoy Estrada, Loi Estrada, Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan, Robert Jaworski, Lito Lapid, Loren Legarda, Ramon Magsaysay, Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., Tessie Oreta-Aquino, Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel, Jr., Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III (now Senate President), Juan Ponce Enrile, Ramon “Bong” Revilla, Jr., Vicente “Tito” Sotto, Cynthia Villar, and Manuel “Manny” Villar. Three Cabinet members of the Aquino administration were also in the Napolist: then Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad, then Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala, and then Technical Education and Skills Development Authority chief Joel Vilanueva (now Senator). 66 congresspersons and 18 persons from government agencies were also a part of the list.