Napoles, lawmakers facing criminal, plunder raps

MANILA, Philippines - Plunder charges are being readied against several lawmakers and officials for allegedly skimming billions of pesos from the congressional pork barrel through bogus projects and overpriced purchases, sources from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said yesterday.

This developed as Justice Secretary Leila de Lima confirmed that the NBI is set to file criminal charges with the Office of the Ombudsman against fugitive businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles and her “cohorts” in connection with the multibillion-peso pork barrel anomaly. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has jurisdiction over the NBI.

“We were able to identify lawmakers who will be charged along with Napoles and we are just collating documentary evidence to support the charges,” De Lima said in an ambush interview.

She declined to give details.

She said the NBI is now finalizing its report and recommendations before these are submitted in the next days for preliminary investigation to the anti-graft body.

“The standing instruction of the President is for us to file strong cases or those with strong evidence as early as we can,” she maintained.

The DOJ chief explained that the NBI would have completed its work this week had it not been for the torrential rain and flooding that forced the suspension of government offices.

She also clarified that the cases to be filed would cover only anomalies involving Napoles and her alleged accomplices in the legislature and the bureaucracy.

De Lima said the Inter-Agency Anti-Graft Coordinating Council comprising the Ombudsman, DOJ and NBI has already convened to look into the “wider web” of pork barrel embezzlement revealed by the Commission on Audit in a recent report.

Only 10 of the 82 non-government organizations (NGO) with questionable dealings with the government have been linked to Napoles.

Still without a trace

But even if the NBI is close to filing charges against Napoles, it still has to find the businesswoman who may be using her fabulous wealth and connections to elude arrest and prosecution.

“The NBI is now pursuing certain leads that they think are more or less credible. Teams have been deployed for these leads that the NBI believes are not pranks,” De Lima said.

Napoles – along with her brother Reynald Lim – has been in hiding since Aug. 14 after evading arrest for an illegal detention case filed by her former employee Benhur Luy.

It was Luy who later squealed on her colluding with some lawmakers in cornering billions of pesos from the congressional pork barrel, officially called Priority Development Assistance Fund.

De Lima also said there is no indication that the fugitives have left the country, as the Bureau of Immigration has alerted ports and airports of the possibility that they might attempt to sneak out.

But nonetheless, the NBI would seek help from the Interpol, she said.

The DOJ chief also said the NBI is not keen on offering cash reward for information that would lead to the arrest of Napoles and Lim.

“NBI officials had a debate among themselves on this and most of them believed it (offering reward) would no longer be necessary. Because if we offer P1 million or P2 million, that would be insignificant considering the resources of the fugitives who can easily counter the offer,” she said.

De Lima also pointed out that bounty mechanism had proven futile in the cases of other high-profile fugitives, including retired Gen. Jovito Palparan and former Palawan governor Joel Reyes.

“And as a matter of principle it’s not good to have some mercenary element considering public outrage on the issue. We can always rely on the help of the public anyway,” she added.

Illegal

Meanwhile, a former budget chief during the previous Arroyo administration agreed with COA’s conclusion that the transfer of P6.2 billion in lawmakers’ pork barrel funds to foundations and NGOs from 2007 to 2009 was illegal.

“Yes, without a specific legal authorization, a government agency cannot transfer funds to a private group or individual,” Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr., budget secretary during the three-year period covered by the special audit, said when asked to comment on the COA findings.

“That is why the DBM (Department of Budget and Management) always releases funds to state agencies or local government units (LGUs). We did not release funds to NGOs,” Andaya said.

He said agencies to which billions in pork barrel funds were released and lawmakers who supposedly asked such agencies to transfer their funds to NGOs should explain such transfers.

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad earlier said it is the recipient agencies and lawmakers who were the sources of the funds who should be held accountable for the misuse of the money.

Twelve senators and more than 100 members of the House of Representatives were found to have funneled funds to 82 NGOs, many of them bogus, in 2007, 2008 and 2009, the last three years of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

In its special audit report, the COA said the DBM released the pork barrel funds to several agencies supposedly to implement projects identified by senators and congressmen who were allocated such funds.

“The IAs (implementing agencies) continuously released funds amounting to P6.156 billion to NGOs for the implementation of various projects despite the absence of an appropriation law or an ordinance earmarking certain amounts to be contracted out to NGOs,” the COA said.

It said the transfer violated Section 53 of the Government Procurement Law.

“This section provides that a procuring entity may enter into a memorandum of agreement with an NGO when an appropriation law or ordinance earmarked an amount to be specifically contracted out to NGOs. In the absence of any appropriation law, then such transfers or releases are not legally authorized,” COA said.

Aside from funds that ended up with NGOs, the special audit covered funds for various infrastructure and local projects, including financial assistance to LGUs.

Deepest involvement

The COA report identifies the IAs as the Department of Agriculture, Department of Public Works and Highways, Department of Social Welfare and Development, Technology Resource Center, National Livelihood Development Corp., National Agribusiness Corp., Zamboanga del Norte Rubber Estate Corp., Mandaluyong City, Quezon City, Manila, Las Piñas City, several towns in the first district of Albay, Tarlac, Bataan, Nueva Ecija, Compostela Valley, and Davao Oriental.

A large part of the funds was handled by the agriculture, public works and social welfare departments.

Bohol Rep. Arthur Yap and Esperanza Cabral were secretaries of agriculture and social welfare, respectively, during the period covered by the audit.

The public works secretaries were Hermogenes Ebdane, now Zambales governor, and his successor, Victor Domingo of Leyte.

Aside from the illegality of the transfer of funds to NGOs, auditors discovered that these private groups were nonexistent or their officers and offices could not be located.

“All the 82 NGOs entrusted with the implementation of 772 projects worth P6.156 billion, along with their suppliers and reported beneficiaries, are either unknown or cannot be located at their given addresses, or have given nonexistent addresses, or addresses traced to a mere shanty or high-end residential units without NGO signage, or submitted questionable documents, or failed to liquidate or fully document utilization of funds,” the COA said. With Jess Diaz