MANILA, Philippines - Up to 15 lawmakers have been implicated in another scam allegedly perpetrated by businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, this time involving hundreds of millions in congressional fund insertions in the national budget.
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said yesterday that the lawmakers were tagged by the same whistle-blowers in the scam involving the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) and new witnesses from agencies involved.
Just like in the PDAF scam, De Lima revealed, the whistle-blowers alleged that Napoles used fake nongovernment organizations (NGOs) to pocket millions of pesos from implementing agencies.
The new schemes were reportedly discovered by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) while probing the pork barrel scam.
This scheme allegedly started during the previous administration in 2004.
Levito Baligod, lawyer of whistle-blower Benhur Luy, revealed that the scam involved amounts of P407 million and P300 million.
Baligod said the P407 million was pocketed from capital outlay of implementing agencies while the P300 million came from funds obtained through congressional insertions in the annual appropriation.
Under the scheme, lawmakers and other beneficiaries of Napoles would just get cash from “shelves†after getting the go-signal from her NGOs, Baligod claimed.
De Lima said the NBI is gathering more evidence to prepare the new set of complaints to be filed with the Office of the Ombudsman.
In an interview yesterday, she hinted that some of the 10 to 15 lawmakers who will face fresh charges were also among those named in the first batch of PDAF cases filed with the ombudsman.
De Lima did not name names.
At least three departments were involved in the latest scam, according to the NBI probe.
De Lima said she did not give the NBI a deadline to come up with the third batch of charges on this non-PDAF scam.
Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said yesterday that no member of the House of Representatives in the present Congress would likely be included in the next round of charges to be filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) for alleged misuse of pork barrel funds.
“I’m almost certain that no names from the 16th Congress will be named except those who were already remnants of the 14th Congress,†Belmonte said, referring to lawmakers who served from 2007 to 2010. With Paolo Romero