Police photos and screen grab of Janet Napoles. (Mindanao Examiner)
MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / Aug. 29, 2013) – An affluent, but controversial Filipina businesswoman, who was accused as behind alleged anomalous transactions involving pork barrel fund of lawmakers, has surrendered to President Benigno Aquino in Manila.
Janet Napoles was accompanied by her lawyer Lorna Kapunan when she surrendered to Aquino in the Presidential Palace. Aquino also accompanied Napoles to the national police headquarters where she was handed over to police director general Alan Purisima.
Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said Napoles fears for her life. Napoles went into hiding after a court ordered her arrest on charges of serious illegal detention arising from the alleged kidnapping of her relative and former aide Benhur Luy.
Luy exposed Napoles alleged scam using fictitious nongovernmental organizations where lawmakers channelled their Priority Development Assistance Fund, a controversial budget given to congressmen and senators to finance small projects in their district. Each congressman gets P70 million annually and senators P200 million each.
“The President turned her over to the custody of Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas and Philippine National Police Director-General Alan Purisima for processing and booking,” Lacierda said.
Napoles has repeatedly denied all accusations against her and said her wealth came from their coal business abroad, among others.
Aquino, who previously rejected calls to abolish the PDAF, has ordered the abolition of the pork barrel fund following mounting public clamor. (Watch press conference of Aquino)
Rep. Neri Colmenares said there is a proposal to turn Napoles as a state witness. “A Malacanang proposition that Janet Napoles will be turned as state witness is unacceptable to the Filipino people and offends the very moral fiber of society. It is totally revolting.”
“It is an insult to the collective outrage of the people, who went out of their homes in order to call for the abolition of the so called pork barrel system and wanting a better government. This would definitely set a bad precedent,” Colmenares said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
Teachers’ rage on Napoles’ surrender to President Aquino
“We somehow expected this because Aquino and cohorts who cannot give up their pork barrel stand to gain more from the media blitz. But then, the stink is overflowing to the rim, the recent stunt supporters of Aquino is simply overrated,” Benjie Valbuena, President of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, said in a separate statement.
Valbuena said the surrender of Napoles to Aquino was staged and called it a “bad television drama series.”
“It is plain and simple another bad telenovela in-the-making where the culprits were treated like heroes in the midst of disgust and isolation from the people. We must not be fooled and be more vigilant. The parliament of the streets beckons to judge this incumbent President who cannot give up his pork barrel for good,” he said.
No way
“To consider Janet Napoles to turn into a state witness is adding insult to injury, by doing this; the government is only courting another major outburst from people which will be a hundredfold bigger in number and more determined to achieve its goals, this after successfully holding the Million People March last August 26,” said Gie Relova, spokesperson of the group called Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino in the National Capital Region and Rizal province.
“This does not change anything, the status quo remains. Pork barrel allocations of all the branches of government are still intact and open for horse-trading, political patronage and graft and corrupt practices. By dismissing the cry for justice and genuine change in governance of all decent and hard-working Filipinos, the Palace has not seen what the power of a disgusted people can achieve,” Relova said.
Relova said no amount of reforms of good governance by the Aquino government “can ever cover up the reeking stench of corruption and moral bankruptcy not unless the system of governance is altered and social justice is achieved in the country.”
Scripted
The youth group Anakbayan also branded as “scripted” the surrender of Napoles. It said the surrender seems like a “poorly-written, telenovela inspired script meant for Aquino-Roxas pa-pogi and to distract ordinary Filipinos from the fact that the pork barrel has not been abolished, and that Aquino’s pork barrel — the President’s Social Fund and other Special Purpose Funds — remains in the 2014 budget.”
The group said the government must answer allegations of cover-up and alleged whitewash into the investigations of the PDAF scam.
“The question must also be asked: Is there a cover-up deal between Noynoy and Napoles to exclude Palace and allies from pork barrel scam? We should not be surprised if Napoles’ scripted surrender results in whitewash of the evidence against administration allies implicated in the pork barrel scam,” Vencer Crisostomo, the group’s national chairman, told the Mindanao Examiner.
He said the plan of the President to “overhaul” the PDAF system will actually lead to an “expanded, unlimited, and invisible Aquino pork barrel system.”
“The Aquino pork plan is an evil, deceptive ploy to bank on the people’s anger against pork barrel and corruption in order to breed an animal more monstrous,” he said.
Crisostomo said Aquino’s statement that he abolished the pork is doublespeak. “Under his new system, the congressmen will merely have to propose their projects to the executive and include them as line items in the General Appropriations Act instead of a lump sum allotted for them. This, for one, means greater Palace pork concentration and more pork under Aquino control and discretion.” (Mindanao Examiner)
20