‘Aquino won’t use Napoles against opposition’

MANILA, Philippines - President Aquino will not use detained kidnapping suspect and alleged pork barrel scam brains Janet Lim-Napoles against the political opposition, Western Samar Rep. Mel Senen Sarmiento said yesterday.

Sarmiento, secretary general of the ruling Liberal Party, said personalities in the opposition were just imagining things when they claimed the administration would use Napoles to invent charges against them.

For his part, Isabela Rep. Rodolfo Albano III said administration critics should not speculate on what Napoles would say and why she surrendered to Aquino.

“Such speculations would be counter-productive. Let us wait for her story and let us trust P-Noy (Aquino),” he said.

Sarmiento said those who are “clean” and have nothing to hide have nothing to fear.

“This is about the search for truth behind the multi-billion-peso pork barrel scam. It is not about politics. Those in the opposition are wrong to give it political color,” he said.

Sarmiento said the administration is bent on unmasking all those involved in the scam, be they allies or foes.

“I think those in the opposition are miscalculating the depth and breadth of this issue that has triggered tremendous hatred from our people on this staggering corruption in our midst. They should realize that this is already above and beyond politics,” he added. Sarmiento appealed to all those who gave hundreds of millions of pork barrel funds to non-government organizations (NGOs) linked to Napoles to just explain their allocations and their alleged irregularities in the implementation of their projects.

He was apparently commenting on the statement of Sen. Jinggoy Estrada that it is not far-fetched that Napoles would be used against him and other opposition personalities.

Estrada is part of the Senate opposition bloc led by Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile.

According to Commission on Audit (COA) Chairman Grace Pulido Tan, Estrada, Enrile, and Senators Ramon Revilla Jr. and Gregorio Honasan gave Napoles NGOs more than P1 billion between 2007 and 2009.

The four are among nearly 200 lawmakers who allocated a total of P6.2 billion to 82 NGOs, including those associated with Napoles, during the three-year period.

Tan said the fund transfer to NGOs was illegal as it was against the Government Procurement Law.

There was no legal authorization for such transfer, she said.

Tan said she would leave it to the Office of the Ombudsman to determine the culpability of members of Congress, state agencies that received their funds and were supposed to implement their projects, and NGOs to which the money was transferred.

Most of the NGOs were bogus and most of the projects they supposedly implemented were non-existent, she added.

Sen. Teofisto Guingona III also defended the Presidential Social Fund viewed by many as a “presidential pork barrel,” even as majority of the senators are more inclined to abolish the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).

Guingona agreed that as lawmakers, they don’t necessarily need hundreds of millions of pesos to implement projects.

“After reading the COA report, at least 15 of us (in the Senate) favored the abolition,” Guingona said.

He added the number of those willing to give up the pork barrel is already the majority.

Guingona also defended President Aquino’s accommodation of Napoles, saying the President is the only person trusted by the surrendered fugitive.

“Everybody reports to him, and people know that he wants to implement the law,” Guingona told reporters at the sidelines of the 163rd birthday celebration Gat Marcelo H. Del Pilar here.

A judgment call

Guingona also dismissed allegations that Napoles’ surrender at Malacañang on Wednesday was scripted.

He said there is no other person for Napoles to surrender to, given the gravity of her situation.

Aquino was criticized for agreeing to the terms of Napoles to surrender to him alone and for appearing to be providing her with special treatment.

Senate President Franklin Drilon said it was a judgment call of the President and that it should be respected.

Drilon said the State has the obligation to secure witnesses.

“Before Napoles was captured, everyone was asking why she was not yet apprehended. Now that she has been captured, the criticisms continue,” Drilon said.

“There are things that only the President knows. Information that ordinary citizens would not have access to,” he said.

Drilon said the President was in a no-win situation as he would most likely have been criticized too if he had not agreed to accept the surrender of Napoles.

He did not discount the possibility that something similar could occur in the future and just like the case of Napoles, the President would again have to make the call himself.

“If he has information or facts that require him to personally take action, then there is nothing wrong with that,” Drilon said in Filipino.

“What is important is to determine if that will benefit the nation and in achieving our goal to ensure justice is served in the country,” he added.

Sen. Francis Escudero, however, disagreed with the President’s decision, saying it demonstrates the extent of Napoles’ influence or that of her connections in government.

“That is lamentable. I always hear that small criminals always go straight to jail but for those who steal millions or billions, they either land in hospitals or in the comforts of a room,” Escudero said in Filipino.

“My concern here is that the influence of Napoles or her connections is really that wide. This is probably the first time in the country that a fugitive surrendered to the President,” he added.

Now that Napoles is in the custody of the authorities, there is talk about her possibility applying to become state’s witness.

Becoming a state witness would not be easy because Napoles, assuming that she is interested, would have to show first that she is the least guilty as far as the case against her is concerned, he said. –  With Marvin Sy, Paolo Romero, Dino Balabo, Danny Dangcalan