Filipinos should blame selves too for gov't corruption - Kapunan

MANILA, Philippines - Lawyer Lorna Kapunan, the former lead counsel of Janet Lim-Napoles, believes that Filipinos are also at fault for the corruption in the government.

"We shouldn't only blame the public officials. We should also blame ourselves because we elected them knowing that they are crooks," Kapunan said in an interview on ANC.

Kapunan said this after resigning last week as the lead counsel of Napoles, the central figure in the alleged pork barrel scam, the latest corruption scandal in the country.

The lawyer said Napoles is not the big fish in the controversy and too much focus on her former client will not catch the real culprits.

"Mrs. Napoles, in the the whole scheme of things, is a small fry compared to the big fish," Kapunan said.

"Why are the real names not coming out?," she asked. "People have said that Mrs. Napoles and the pork barrel scam is already old-fashioned. These senators, congressmen and maybe the mayors have already sophisticated it to such extent that they don't need middlemen."

Napoles is currently detained in Fort Sto. Domingo in Laguna in connection to the serious illegal detention charges filed by Benhur Luy, her former employee and the key whistle-blower in the alleged pork barrel scam.

Luy and other whistle-blowers have testified before the Senate that Napoles, who is now facing plunder charges, pocketed public funds that were channeled from lawmakers' pork barrel to bogus non-government organizations she supposedly set up.

The businesswoman is scheduled to testify in the Senate hearing on November 7, Thursday. 

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